During a long minority this boy had been zealously inoculated with Western knowledge and Western points of view; and with the deceptive pliancy of the Oriental he had smilingly submitted to the process. But deep down in the unplumbed heart of him he waited for the good day when he would be rid of these well-meaning interlopers,—tireless as their own fire-carriages,—who troubled the still waters of life and talked so vigorously about nothing in particular; when he would be free to forget cricket and polo and futile efforts to cleanse the State from intrigue; free to sit down in peace and grow fat, unhindered by the senseless machinations of the outer world.
And in the heart of Govind Singh you have a fair epitome of the great heart of India herself: aloof, long-suffering, illogical to a degree inconceivable by Western minds; ready to lavish deep-hearted devotion upon individual Nicholsons and Lawrences when they come her way; yet, for all her surface submission and progress, not an inch nearer to racial sympathy, or to the inner significance of English life and character than she was fifty years ago.
But, in the meanwhile, our concern is with a minor Maharajah, and his passion for musical boxes.
At the Resident's approach, the laughter and whispering ceased; and the four boys endured with impassive politeness the mysterious rite of introduction. The tinkling album gave Quita her cue. She insisted on hearing its entire repertoire, which was mercifully limited; and her natural ease of manner, her knack of plunging whole-heartedly into the subject of the moment, soon put Govind Singh's shyness to flight. He deserted monosyllables for clipped, hurried sentences, jerked out with an odd mixture of nervousness and self-satisfaction. Quita flashed a smile at Desmond, who stood sentry at her elbow, in seeming ignorance of the fact that Garth was making tentative attempts to usurp his place.
"You must show me some of the others, Rajah Sahib," she declared, as the complacent album clicked into silence, "and when I go home to England I will hunt you up a new kind to add to your collection!"
The boy's eyes lost their look of lazy indifference; a gleam of superb teeth illumined his face.
"An upright grand is the last trifling addition to it, Miss Maurice," Colonel Mayhew informed her, "but the Rajah was a little disappointed when he found that it couldn't be set going by the turning of a key."
"I am liking the big noise—the big tamasha," the young monarch explained in all gravity. "And I think that one is too much price for a box that will do nothing unless somebody knows to make it speak."
"Mrs Desmond can make it speak for you, Rajah Sahib," Colonel Mayhew suggested; and the boy turned upon her with shy eagerness.
"Can you really do a tune?" he asked.