“My life has been so strange,” I said, “that nothing seems strange to me, unless I am in a very thoughtful mood, and then life seems so inexplicable that everything seems strange.”
We were standing by a funny little square basin of water. Oriental moss broke the outlines of its marble sides. Strange coloured lilies slept upon its breast. Here and there a lantern of Japanese silk dotted the mangoe trees. Hattie tapped the warm marble with her little blue slipper. “Isn’t it pretty!” said the girl, pointing with her big blue eyes to the roof that we had left. It certainly was very pretty. Through a break in the palm trees we could see our host and his men guests. They were smoking, all of them, but they seemed rather thoughtful. Above them, swung on invisible wires and on rope vines, were innumerable Japanese and Chinese lanterns. My eyes lingered lovingly on the soft yellows and the clear purples of the pretty illuminated paper balls. Above all glittered the matchless stars. “I think that I should like to live in India,” said the girl at my side, softly; “wouldn’t you?”
“I love my life almost anywhere,” I said, turning from the fountain to pull a mogree flower. Then I kissed my young country-woman in the moonlight. I regard kissing women as more to be condemned than giggling girls and crowing hens. But some strange wave of tenderness welled over me for the maiden at my side.
When the men and the coffee came down, sweet tinkling music crept to us nearer and nearer from the shadow of the trees. A band of native musicians had been engaged—for our sake I fear,—they were such an old story to the Anglo-Indians there. I crept among the trees to examine their barrel-like drums and their indescribable string instruments. Mine host and mine husband followed me. We came back by the little lily pond. The subaltern and the American girl were there, looking at the lilies so intently that they did not see us.
“There is something remarkable about American women,” said my English husband, with slow impertinence. “A man goes half mad until he gets an American wife, and then he’d give half the world to get rid of her.”
“Yes,” said the Major, “I regard the influx of American women into the British ranks as the chief danger that now threatens our forces. I do not understand their apathy at the War Office, and at Westminster.”
I pelted my two tormentors with mogree flowers, and we went back to our hostess, leaving the young people by the lilies.
It was very late. The native musicians had taken their big bukshish and gone. A few faint streaks of light replaced the faded stars. It was almost morning. We heard the tramp of men; we caught the martial rhythm of a good old English carol. The privates of our host’s regiment were coming (those of them who could sing) with the bandmaster at their head—coming to serenade the major’s lady.
They sang with a right good will. When they broke into “Rule Britannia,” the bird-like soprano of the pretty American girl rose shyly above the strong heavy voices of the men. She had come back to the old mother country, as so many American women do, led back by love. It was morning. India seemed to have shaken off night, oppression, superstition, sorrow. And as the full, big glory of the day broke, the soldiers stood at attention and sang—with husky voices some of them, “God save the Queen.” And in the distance, through the air, some one or something breathed the dear old tune of “Home, sweet Home.”