“I heard of you so much there that you are no stranger to me,” he said, watching with curious interest while she filled the Chinese cups of pink and jade porcelain with jasmine tea from a hidden valley in Anhui. It fascinated him—the white hands flitting like little quick birds on their quick errands, the girl, so calm and self-possessed, mistress of herself and her house. Many years of wandering had opened his heart to the feminine charm of it all, the quiet, the rose-leaf scent in the air, the things which group by instinct about a refined woman.
“You have a delightful home!” he said at last, rather abruptly.
“Yes— When you return do try to convince Mrs. Mourilyan that I don’t live in a hut on an iceberg. You agree with me, I am sure, that only Kashmir and perhaps one or two other places can be more beautiful than this.”
“Yes. I fully agree. Yet it misses something which permeates India in places far less beautiful. It lacks atmosphere. Just as the fallen leaves of a forest make up a rich soil in which all growth is luxuriant, so the dead ancientry of India makes earth and air rich with memory and tradition—and more. You can’t get it in these new countries.”
“I know,” she said eagerly. “Here it’s just a beautiful child with all her complexities before her. It rests one, you know. I felt it an amazing rest when I came here.”
“I can understand that. And they tell me the climate is delightful. I wish I could stay here. I may come back some day. But I must return to India in four months.”
“You have work?”
“Yes and no. I have collected an immense quantity of notes for several books, but—now you will laugh!—I shall never write them.”
“But why—why? I know there’s an immense opening for true books about the Orient.”
“I think so too. But you allow it’s a drawback that I am entirely devoid of the writing gift. I have my knowledge. I have the thing flame-clear in my mind. But let me put it on paper and it evaporates. Dull as ditchwater! You see?”