These two exiled Brownes drew up chairs and tried to feel at least anticipative appreciation. There were two round transparent holes in the doors through which they could see a reflection of their glowing hearth. They leaned towards it and spread out their hands. Young Browne remarked, with a chill smile, that it was certainly warmer than it had been. They pulled their chairs closer together, in order, I have no doubt, to impede the heat that might escape into other quarters of the room. Helen slipped her hand into her husband’s, and together they looked thoughtfully into the depths of the burning wick. I think the way in which they must have regarded this thing, which was to mean for them the essence of home life in an unhomelike country, and the warm glow of home love caught and held where it is reputed apt to stray abroad, was not altogether laughable though. In fact——
“Nellie!” exclaimed young Browne, and had occasion to bring his chair closer still. There was a moist contact of cheeks and a succession of comforting silences. The kerosene stove continued to burn excellently, but was disregarded.
“It looks like some kind of—of engine, doesn’t it, George?” Mrs. Browne recovered herself sufficiently to say.
“Yes. Beastly thing!” concurred young Browne in further disparagement. Then they began to observe the effect of the heat on the varnish. It took the form of a hot penetrative unpleasant smell that radiated from the kerosene stove into every quarter of the room.
“I expect it will wear off,” said young Browne gloomily, “but we’d better put the thing out in the compound every night until it does.”
It has never worn off, however. Helen, with responsible memory of the thirty-five rupees, used it conscientiously all last cold weather. She did serious and light-minded cooking with it while she suffered the delusion that she was Kali Bagh’s superior—inevitable but short—and she made almost enough toffee upon it to justify its expense, if it had been necessary to subsist upon toffee. Whenever anything could be done with it the Brownes did it. They had it lighted to welcome their return from burra-khanas and Government House dances, and on one occasion Helen sat for half an hour before it in her most cherished gown, under a shower of softly falling black flakes of carbonized kerosene without being aware of it—the result of an injudicious lighting and forgetting on the part of the bearer. Many an evening they sat in its presence making efforts at hilarity and trying to forget the odours of varnish and kerosene—in the end they always confessed it inadequate. It had a self-contained moroseness, it never snapped or sparkled or died down. When they went to bed they turned it out. Through its two round eyes it mocked their homesick effort after the cheer of other lands. The bearer admired it and took pride in setting it alight. But the Brownes regarded it with feelings that grew constantly more “mixed.” It made no ashes and gave no trouble, and when they didn’t want it it was not there—all of which seemed additional offences.
The old kite that surveyed them always through the window from his perch in the sago palm beside the veranda said nothing, but if they had been intelligent they might have heard the jackals that nightly pillaged the city’s rubbish heaps, howling derision at the foolishness of a sahib who tried to plant his hearth-stone in India.