For one short second Chris felt inclined to brave the situation. Then, as usual, he hesitated; so the moment of salvation passed. John Ellison rolled up his prize, put them under his arm, and with a general "Ram-ram" to the bystanders, and an affectionate wave of the hand to old 'Oneyman, walked off cheerily whistling,
"This is no my plaid, my plaid, my plaid."
Chris looked after him helplessly, then went back to his tree hopelessly. He could not return home, by broad daylight, in any possible permutation or combination of a swallow-tailed coat and a devotee's dhoti. The only thing to be done was to wait for kindly concealing night.
Being Sunday, he would not be missed till noon, for his wife was a late riser. Even then she would not be alarmed; indeed, he had often stayed out all day without her taking the trouble to ask where he had been. That thought decided him to stay where and as he was. Besides, despite the shameful absurdity of the cause, the result was in a way, pleasant. It was something to be sent back without responsibility to the old life even for a few hours, and a spirit of adventure woke in him as he remembered the things possible to one of his caste. Any one, for instance, would feed a Brahmin; and so, after secreting the remainder of his clothes beyond the reach of monkeys under a heap of the ruined wall, until he found an opportunity of removing them altogether, he set off boldly to beg breakfast in the city. The sun, now high in the heavens, smote on his bare limbs--so long unaccustomed to the warm stimulating caress--with all the intoxication of a new physical pleasure. But there was another touch, still more stimulating, which came to him first in a narrow side street close to the city gate; a street all sun and shade in bars, with women's chatter, women's laughter echoing from within the courtyard doors. Doors all closed save this, the first, which had opened at his cry for alms, to let a woman's hand slip through. That reverent touch on his palm, so soft, so kind; that glimpse of a full petticoat, a jewel-covered throat, made his brain reel with recollection, his heart leap with the possibilities it suggested. How many years was it since he had seen a Brahmin woman worshipping her husband? That had been his mother, and he might have had such a wife as she had been to his father, if he had chosen; almost, if he chose.
The suggestion repelled yet attracted him, and, after a time, half in curiosity, half in affection, he turned his steps to the well-remembered alley where his mother still lived. He had been to see her, of course, when he first returned to India, but inevitably as an alien; and after his refusal to do penance, he had not gone at all. She had, in fact, refused to receive him. So his heart beat as he stood muffled in his devotee's drapery before the door, through which he had so often passed to worship clinging to her skirts, and gave his beggar's cry--
'Alakh! for Shiv's sake.'
There was no need to repeat it; for this was a pious house. The low door opened wide, and a young girl held out an alms with the mechanical precision of practice.
'For Shiv's sake,' she echoed monotonously, 'and for the sake of a son who has wandered from the true fold.'
Her voice held no trace of feeling, but Chris fell back with a stifled cry. For he knew what the words meant; knew that he was the wanderer.
So, for a second, the girl stood surprised, hesitating. She was extraordinarily beautiful. A slender slip of a girl about fourteen, with a long round throat poising the delicate oval of her face, and black lashes sweeping to meet the bar of her brows above her soft velvety eyes. There was a likeness still to the little orphan cousin who had come to make one more mouth to feed in the patriarchal household when he was a big boy just keen for college: the girl-child over whom his mother had smiled mysteriously, and talked of the years to come when the head of the house would have had his fill of education for his boy, and permit marriage. Yes, this was she, his cousin, little Naraini.