"You do not wish your people to become Christians?" she asked.
"I shall not interfere in their religion," was the quick answer—"or, at any rate, I shall force nothing. If my people believe truly and earnestly in their gods, I shall not destroy their belief, for then they will believe in nothing. And the belief is everything. As for me"—his voice sank and grew suddenly gentler—"I am different. I have been led by a light which I must follow."
After a moment's thoughtful silence he changed the subject and began pointing out to her the improvements he had brought about in the native dwellings. Even Beatrice, who had seen little of the old conditions, felt that the change was almost incredible. A conservative, indolent and superstitious people had within a few months been transferred from loathsome dirt and squalor into a "model village" such as an English workman might have envied. Nehal Singh showed her the houses at the end of the Bazaar which belonged to the chief men, or those responsible to him for the cleanliness and order of the community. Small, prettily planted gardens separated one low dwelling from the other, and each bore its stamp of individuality, as though the owner had tried by some new and quaint device to outdo his neighbor.
"Of course," Nehal Singh explained to her, as they turned homeward, "there are men with whom nothing can be done. They have spent their lives as beggars, and can not work now even if they would. For such I have made provision, although they, too, have been given small tasks to keep them from appearing beggars. But they are the last of their kind. There shall in future be no idlers in Marut. From thenceforward every man shall work honestly and faithfully for his daily bread, and I will see that he has no need to starve. The mine will employ the strongest, and then, later, Travers and I intend to revive the various industries suited to the people's taste and talent."
"You have already done a great deal," she said, moved to real admiration. "I tremble to think what it has cost you." As she spoke, the hidden irony in her casually spoken words came home to her, and she felt the old fear clutch at her heart.
"I have given the best I have—myself," he answered gravely. "Of material wealth I have only retained what is beautiful; for beauty must not be sold to be given as bread among the poor. That would be a crime—as though one would sell Heaven for earth. Travers wished me to sell the old jeweled statues and relics, but I would not. They belong to my people, and one day, when they have learned to see and understand, they will thank me that I have kept the splendors intact for them."
"You are wise," she said thoughtfully—"wiser than Travers and many others."
"In my first enthusiasm, I meant to sell everything, and live as the poorest of them all," he went on; "but I soon saw that that was wrong. The man into whose hands wealth is given has a great task set him. He has a power denied to others. He can collect and preserve all that is beautiful in art and nature—not for himself, but for those who otherwise would never see anything but what is poor and squalid and commonplace. True, he must also strive to alleviate the sufferings of their bodies, so that their minds may be free to enjoy; but he must not sacrifice the higher for the lower task—that would surely be the work of what you call a Philistine. And his higher task is to feed their souls with all that is lovely and stainless. Has not the Master said, 'A man shall not live by bread alone'? Is it not true? And again, I have read: 'What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' And is not the man who sits, fed and clothed, in a low, flat, level world of mud-huts in danger, of forgetting that there were ever such wonders as the minarets of a high, Heaven-aspiring temple? Will he not grow to think that there is nothing more beautiful than a mud-hut, nothing more to be desired than his daily bread? I have thought of all this, and I have preserved my palace and everything that it contains. I have preserved it for my people. It shall be for them a goal and encouragement, a voice speaking to them day by day from the high towers: 'See what the hands of thy fathers have created! Thou people in the low dwellings, arise and do greater things still, for the great and beautiful is nearest God'!"
He stopped abruptly, shaken by his own passionate enthusiasm. His fine head raised, his eyes flashing, his hand extended, he could have stood for the statue of some inspired prophet.
"You are a modern Buddha," she said, smiling faintly. Inwardly she was comparing him to Mr. Berry—Mr. Berry, whose highest ideal in life was to bring everything down to a nice, shabby, orthodox level.