"No, Roy. Not to say that——" The flash in her eyes, that was almost anger, startled and impressed him more than any spoken word. "No thought that ever came in your father's mind could be—like insult to me. Oh, my dear, have you not sense to know that for an old English family like his, with roots down deep in English soil and history, it is not good that mixture of race should come twice over in two generations. To you—our kind of marriage appears a simple affair. You see only how close we are now, in love and understanding. You cannot imagine all the difficulties that went before. We know them—and we are proud, because they became like dust under our feet. Only to you—Dilkusha, I could tell ... a little, if you wish—for helping you to understand."
"Please tell," he said, and his hand closed on hers.
So, leaning back among her cushions—speaking very simply in the low voice that was music to his ears—she told....
The telling—fragmentary, yet vivid—lasted less than half an hour. But in that half-hour Roy gleaned a jewel of memory that the years would not dim. The very words would remain....
For Lilámani—wandering backward in fancy through the Garden of Remembrance—revealed more than she realised of the man she loved and of her own passionate spirit, compact of fire and dew, the sublimated essence of the Eastern woman at her best.
Yet in spite of that revealing—or rather because of it—rebellion stirred afresh. And, as if divining his thoughts, she impulsively raised her hand. "Now, Roy, you must promise. Only so, I can speak to Dad and rest his mind."
Seizing her hand, he kissed it fervently.
"Darling—after all that, a mere promise would be a fatuous superfluity. If you say 'No Indian wife,' that's enough for me. I suppose I must rest content with the high privilege of possessing an Indian mother."
Her radiant surprise was a beautiful thing to see. Leaning forward, she took his head in her hands and kissed him between his eyebrows where the caste-mark should be.