"What's the matter with us both using it?" he said very civilly.
"But," objected Nan, "this is the sort of a place that you want all to yourself."
"Yes, it is," he agreed and did not let the situation worry him further. He didn't offer her a seat or give her a chance to take herself off gracefully. And Nanny was beginning to feel a little awkward. She wasn't used to being ignored in this strange fashion.
"Are you very old?" the minister asked suddenly and looked up at her with eyes as innocent and serene as a child's.
"I'm twenty-three," Nan was startled into confessing.
"Why aren't you married?"
As she gasped and searched about for an answer he added:
"In India a girl is a grandmother at that age."
"This isn't India," smiled Nan good-naturedly, for she saw quite suddenly that this big young man knew very little about women, especially western women.
"No—this isn't India." He repeated her words slowly, little wrinkles of pain ruffling his face. For his inner eye was blotting out the Green Valley picture and painting in its stead the India of his memory, the India of gorgeous color, the bazaars, the narrow streets; the India that held within its mystic arms two plain white stones standing side by side and bearing the inscriptions "Father" and "Mother."