"No difference?" he echoed, in joyous, incredulous exultation. "Why, of course, it makes all the difference in the world, little woman! You and I can never go back again, now! We can never pretend again that we don't care! No! when this cholera camp is over, and I have time, we must think over what is to be done--but it's final. Yes! it's final, my darling, my darling!"
His kisses rained on her face, his heart encompassed her. So they stood for a while, oblivious of the wheeling, veering, eddying wings above them, oblivious of all things save that they were lovers, and that they knew it.
Then she left him. "He" would be wondering why she was so late; but Suleiman, the Arab pony, would soon carry her over the sandy plain.
The man remained watching the slight figure on the bounding grey till it was lost in the "azure silk of morning." Then he returned slowly to the jheel again, lost in thought. There was a good deal whereof to think, for she was a mother; by ill luck the mother of girls. Why had she worn those tiny presentments of their sweet baby faces in the double heart brooch which fastened her folded tie! She had not thought, of course; but it had somehow come between him and his kisses after he had noticed it.
Well! it was unfortunate; but that sort of thing had to be faced, and he would face it after he had seen his cholera camp through; for he was a doctor, and the thought of what might lie before him was with him as a background to all others. He had chosen a good place for the camp, yonder among the low sandhills, which were the highest point in all the desert plain, and, if that did not kill the germ, they could move on.
Meanwhile---- He drew a long breath and looked out over the water. The primrose dawn had passed to amber, the amber was beginning to flame, the whirring wings had carried the birds to distant feeding grounds, only a flock of egrets remained fishing solemnly in a distant shallow.
"The Huzoor is looking for God's birds," said a courteous voice beside him. "They have gone, likely, to the Lake of High Hope, for it nears the time of transit to a Higher Land."
The speaker was an old man seated so close to the water that his feet and legs were hidden by it. He had a simple, pleasant face, which over-thinness had refined almost to austerity.
The doctor took stock of him quietly. His speech proclaimed him a down country man, his lack of any garment save a strip of saffron cloth around his loins suggested asceticism, but his smile was at once familiar and kindly.
"Mānasa Sarovara?" replied the Englishman, carelessly, "is that what you mean? I am told the birds really do go there during the hot weather. I wonder if it is true. I should like to see it." He spoke half to himself, for he was somewhat of an ornothologist and the tale of the great West Tibetan Lake of Refuge for God's dear birds--that lake far from the haunts of men amid the eternal snow and ice, into which so many streams flow, out of which come none--had caught his fancy.