But, as her dark eyes met his in passionate adoration, something in the sight of his exceeding beauty smote her to the heart. The thought that there was none to inherit it, the knowledge that if it passed it would leave nothing behind it. It is a thought which has driven many an Indian woman to take another woman by the hand and lead her home to be a hand-maiden to the lord. It drove Sarsuti--after long weeks, nay, months of thought--almost to speech.
"Prem!" she faltered, hiding her face on his breast,
"I have been thinking--thou needst a son--and----" But she could get no further, partly because the words seemed to choke her, partly because Prema, turning her face to his with his soft, supple hand, stopped her mouth with kisses.
What was the use? What was the use, she asked herself fiercely, thinking of such things when she loved him so? Some morning, aye! some summer morning after a summer's night, she would rather make the Dream-compeller send her to sleep, once and for all!--to sleep and dreams of Prema and his love! Then he could marry again, and there would be children to light up the old house, a son to light the funeral pyre.
But now--no! Not yet!...
The sunshine filtering through the broad leaves dappled them with light and shade; the oxen resting stood head down, nosing at the damp earth; the water, ceasing to splash, ran silently more and more slowly on its way, and all around them a yellow glare of heat hemmed them in breathlessly. Yet here, at the well, the jasmine grew green, a big datura lily, rejoicing in the shade, threw out its wide white blossoms, and, looking down to the mirror-like pool of water into which the long, unending circle of deftly-arranged earthen pots and ropes dipped, you could see the tufts of maidenhair fern which came God knows whence. They were like love in the heart--Heaven--sent!
"Thou wilt call at the Lala-jee's this evening, Sarsuti," said Prema, with a faint note of half-shamed uneasiness in his voice, as, his midday meal of milk and hearth-cakes over, she prepared to go back. "He deals more justly with thee than with me--may he be accursed, and may the footsteps of a dog ..."
"S'st! Prema," she interrupted, "the Lala-jee is no worse than his kind; and we have asked so much--lately."
Yes! she thought as she trudged homewards, they had asked much, for Prema had a lavish hand. Yet she would, of course, have him keep up his position as head man of the village; the position that had been hers by right as the only child of her father. Prema, her cousin, had gained it through his marriage to her, by special favour of the Sirkar, in memory of good service done in the Mutiny time by the old man. He had been a better husbandman than Prema, and money had gone fast these few years since he died, though she had tried to keep things as they had been. Still, who could grudge Prema the handsomest yoke of oxen in the country-side, the fleetest mare? And those mad experiments of his with new ploughs, new seeds that the Huzoors spoke about! It was well to keep to the soft side of the masters, no doubt, yet it should be done discreetly--and when was Prema ever discreet? She almost laughed, even while she stooped to let the water from an overflooded plot run into the next by removing the clod which her husband had forgotten, thinking of his indiscreetness--of the gifts he showered on her when he had money in his pocket to pay for them; sometimes when he had not. Of course, the Lala-jee would listen to reason and lend more on the coming crop--who could deny Prem anything?
But the Lala was curiously obdurate. He was an old man, who had backed the luck of the village for three generations, and never had a dispute with his creditors.