Such a very solitary-looking young man, that the question sprang inevitably to the spectator's lips, 'Is the game worth the candle?'
There were others, besides spectators, in Shark Lane who asked the question, and were not sure of the answer. Miriam-bibi, Hâfiz Ahmad's wife, for instance, who, as Aunt Khôjee put it, had been taken away to live as a mem, felt it was not. Of course it was dignified to eat in one room, sit in another, and sleep in a third, as if this trinity of habit were Heaven's decree. Then, undoubtedly, small bronze feet did look entrancing in small bronze high-heeled shoes. But when there could be no novel-reading, no writing of notes, no arranging of flowers and playing of the piano, and when you were accustomed to eat and sleep when the fancy took you? Then one room was quite sufficient in which to be dull and solitary, since there were no friends or relations near to come in for a gossip.
Besides, it was undeniable that the pretty bronze shoes pinched the toes that were accustomed to greater freedom.
Therefore it was a joy, indeed, when, on Sundays, the green box on wheels, instead of taking Hâfiz Ahmad to court, took her back to the close, familiar city; to the evil-smelling bazaars below, and the scented, sensual woman's life above, so full of laughter and quarrelling, so full of sunshine and seclusion, with its unending suggestion of sex.
Full also, to Miriam's intense delight, of betel-chewing and tobacco-smoking; for though Hâfiz Ahmad permitted neither in Shark Lane, he never noticed the resultant signs of either on her return. So proving himself possessed of that master's degree in the art of compromise which young India has to take before attempting even a bachelor's in any other.
For even Miriam found single-mindedness impossible in Shark Lane, and her eulogiums on her new life had to be so strenuous in the city that even simple Aunt Khôjee remarked that 'wise hens never cackled over their own nests unless they were empty!'
On Monday mornings too, after her debauch in city ways, Miriam found it necessary to be aggressively European. She would even go so far as to eat the lightly-boiled egg of civilisation for her breakfast--the egg which calls for saltcellars and spoons, in other words for refinement and luxury. And when her husband had departed in the green box with his law-books, she would yawn dutifully in all three rooms, till nature could no more. So she would send surreptitiously for the cook's wife and baby, and adjourn to a hurdle-closed verandah where her visitors could be properly screened from the new world. Since, let the master do as he chose, there would have been noses on the green in the servant's house had its womenkind allowed the tips of theirs to be seen by strangers!
So Miriam would be comparatively content till the advent of the green box sent her back to three rooms, and a pair of bronze slippers.
On the whole, this double life of hers was a very fair example of most lives in Shark Lane where, despite all the high aspirations after truth and reality, it was quite impossible to reach either; since every one was quite aware that they were trying an experiment, and that a doubtful one.
This was the case more especially in the last house in Shark Lane, just where it merged into the more fashionable River Road. Here, at the corner, a very decorative pair of posts announcing that Mr. Chris Davenant lived within, stood cheek by jowl beside a similar pair with Mr. Lucanaster's name upon them; and though one of the two houses was screened, it was screened by trellises and creepers, behind which a pale pink dress could often be seen fluttering in company with the owner of the other house. For Mrs. Chris Davenant claimed her full share of Western liberty.