She extended her hand cool as a snowflake, and was gone, walking swiftly up the road. Ah, let a man beware when his wishes fulfilled, rain down upon him!

To what had I committed myself? She knew her strength and had no fears.

I could scarcely realize that she had liking enough for me to make the offer. That it meant no shade more than she had said I knew well. She was safe, but what was to be the result for me? I knew nothing--she was a beloved mystery.

"Strange she is and secret, Strange her eyes; her cheeks are cold as cold sea-sh.e.l.ls."

Yet I would risk it, for I knew there was no hope if I let her go now, and if I saw her again, some glimmer might fall upon my dark.

Next day this reached me:--Dear Mr. Clifden,--

I am going to some Indian friends for a time. On the 15th of June I shall be at Srinagar in Kashmir. A friend has allowed me to take her little houseboat, the "Kedarnath." If you like this plan we will share the cost for two months. I warn you it is not luxurious, but I think you will like it. I shall do this whether you come or no, for I want a quiet time before I take up my nursing in Lah.o.r.e. In thinking of all this will you remember that I am not a girl but a woman. I shall be twenty-nine my next birthday. Sincerely yours, VANNA LORING.

P.S. But I still think you would be wiser not to come. I hope to hear you will not.

I replied only this:--Dear Miss Loring,--I think I understand the position fully. I will be there. I thank you with all my heart.

Gratefully yours, STEPHEN CLIFDEN.

IV

Three days later I met Lady Meryon, and was swept in to tea. Her manner was distinctly more cordial as she mentioned casually that Vanna had left--she understood to take up missionary work--"which is odd," she added with a woman's acrimony, "for she had no more in common with missionaries than I have, and that is saying a good deal. Of course she speaks Hindustani perfectly, and could be useful, but I haven't grasped the point of it yet." I saw she counted on my knowing nothing of the real reason of Vanna's going and left it, of course, at that. The talk drifted away under my guidance. Vanna evidently puzzled her. She half feared, and wholly misunderstood her.

No message came to me, as time went by, and for the time she had vanished completely, but I held fast to her promise and lived on that only.

I take up my life where it ceased to be a mere suspense and became life once more.

On the 15th of June, I found myself riding into Srinagar in Kashmir, through the pure tremulous green of the mighty poplars that hedge the road into the city. The beauty of the country had half stunned me when I entered the mountain barrier of Baramula and saw the snowy peaks that guard the Happy Valley, with the Jhelum flowing through its tranquil loveliness. The flush of the almond blossom was over, but the iris, like a blue sea of peace had overflowed the world--the azure meadows smiled back at the radiant sky. Such blossom! the blue shading into clear violet, like a shoaling sea. The earth, like a cup held in the hand of a G.o.d, brimmed with the draught of youth and summer and--love? But no, for me the very word was sinister. Vanna's face, immutably calm, confronted it.

That night I slept in a boat at Sopor, and I remember that, waking at midnight, I looked out and saw a mountain with a gloriole of hazy silver about it, misty and faint as a cobweb threaded with dew. The river, there spreading into a lake, was dark under it, flowing in a deep smooth blackness of shadow, and everything awaited--what? And even while I looked, the moon floated serenely above the peak, and all was bathed in pure light, the water rippling and shining in broken silver and pearl.

So had Vanna floated into my sky, luminous, sweet, remote. I did not question my heart any more. I knew I loved her.

Two days later I rode into Srinagar, and could scarcely see the wild beauty of that strange Venice of the East, my heart was so beating in my eyes. I rode past the lovely wooden bridges where the balconied houses totter to each other across the ca.n.a.ls in dim splendour of carving and age; where the many-coloured native life crowds down to the river steps and cleanses its flower-bright robes, its gold-bright bra.s.s vessels in the shining stream, and my heart said only--Vanna, Vanna!

One day, one thought, of her absence had taught me what she was to me, and if humility and patient endeavor could raise me to her feet, I was resolved that I would spend my life in labor and think it well spent.

My servant dismounted and led his horse, asking from every one where the "Kedarnath" could be found, and eager black eyes sparkled and two little bronze images detached themselves from the crowd of boys, and ran, fleet as fauns, before us.

Above the last bridge the Jhelum broadens out into a stately river, controlled at one side by the banked walk known as the Bund, with the Club House upon it and the line of houseboats beneath. Here the visitors flutter up and down and exchange the gossip, the bridge appointments, the little dinners that sit so incongruously on the pure Orient that is Kashmir.

She would not be here. My heart told me that, and sure enough the boys were leading across the bridge and by a quiet shady way to one of the many backwaters that the great river makes in the enchanting city. There is one waterway stretching on afar to the Dal Lake. It looks like a river--it is the very haunt of peace. Under those mighty chenar, or plane trees, that are the glory of Kashmir, clouding the water with deep green shadows, the sun can scarcely pierce, save in a dipping sparkle here and there to intensify the green gloom. The murmur of the city, the chatter of the club, are hundreds of miles away. We rode downward under the towering trees, and dismounting, saw a little houseboat tethered to the bank. It was not of the richer sort that haunts the Bund, where the native servants follow in a separate boat, and even the electric light is turned on as part of the luxury. This was a long low craft, very broad, thatched like a country cottage afloat. In the forepart lived the native owner, and his family, their crew, our cooks and servants; for they played many parts in our service. And in the afterpart, room for a life, a dream, the joy or curse & many days to be.

But then, I saw only one thing--Vanna sat under the trees, reading, or looking at the cool dim watery vista, with a single boat, loaded to the river's edge with melons and scarlet tomatoes, punting lazily down to Srinagar in the sleepy afternoon.

She was dressed in white with a shady hat, and her delicate dark face seemed to glow in the shadow like the heart of a pale rose. For the first time I knew she was beautiful. Beauty shone in her like the flame in an alabaster lamp, serene, diffused in the very air about her, so that to me she moved in a mild radiance. She rose to meet me with both hands outstretched--the kindest, most cordial welcome. Not an eyelash flickered, not a trace of self-consciousness. If I could have seen her flush or tremble--but no--her eyes were clear and calm as a forest pool.

So I remembered her. So I saw her once more.

I tried, with a hopeless pretence, to follow her example and hide what I felt, where she had nothing to hide.

"What a place you have found. Why, it's like the deep heart of a wood!"

"Yes, I saw it once when I was here with the Meryons. But we lay at the Bund then--just under the Club. This is better. Did you like the ride up?"

I threw myself on the gra.s.s beside her with a feeling of perfect rest.

"It was like a new heaven and a new earth. What a country!"

The very spirit of Quiet seemed to be drowsing in those branches towering up into the blue, dipping their green fingers into the crystal of the water. What a heaven!

"Now you shall have your tea and then I will show you your rooms," she said, smiling at my delight. "We shall stay here a few days more that you may see Srinagar, and then they tow us up into the Dal Lake opposite the Gardens of the Mogul Emperors. And if you think this beautiful what will you say then?"

I shut my eyes and see still that first meal of my new life. The little table that Pir Baksh, breathing full East in his jade-green turban, set before her, with its cloth worked in a pattern of the chenar leaves that are the symbol of Kashmir; the brown cakes made by Ahmad Khan in a miraculous kitchen of his own invention--a few holes burrowed in the river bank, a smoldering fire beneath them, and a width of canvas for a roof. But it served, and no more need be asked of luxury. And Vanna, making it mysteriously the first home I ever had known, the central joy of it all. Oh, wonderful days of life that breathe the spirit of immortality and pa.s.s so quickly--surely they must be treasured somewhere in Eternity that we may look upon their beloved light once more.

"Now you must see the boat. The Kedarnath is not a Dreadnought, but she is broad and very comfortable. And we have many chaperons. They all live in the bows, and exist simply to protect the Sahiblog from all discomfort, and very well they do it. That is Ahmad Khan by the kitchen.

He cooks for us. Salama owns the boat, and steers her and engages the men to tow us when we move. And when I arrived he aired a little English and said piously; The Lord help me to give you no trouble, and the Lord help you! That is his wife sitting on the bank. She speaks little but Kashmiri, but I know a little of that. Look at the hundred rat-tail plaits of her hair, lengthened with wool, and see her silver and turquoise jewelry. She wears much of the family fortune and is quite a walking bank. Salama, Ahmad Khan and I talk by the hour. Ahmad comes from Fyzabad. Look at Salama's boy--I call him the Orange Imp. Did you ever see anything so beautiful?"

I looked in sheer delight, and grasped my camera. Sitting near us was a lovely little Kashmiri boy of about eight, in a faded orange coat, and a turban exactly like his father's. His curled black eyelashes were so long that they made a soft gloom over the upper part of the little golden face. The perfect bow of the scarlet lips, the long eyes, the shy smile, suggested an Indian Eros. He sat dipping his feet in the water with little pigeon-like cries of content.

"He paddles at the bow of our little shikara boat with a paddle exactly like a water-lily leaf. Do you like our friends? I love them already, and know all their affairs. And now for the boat."

"One moment--If we are friends on a great adventure, I must call you Vanna, and you me Stephen."

"Yes, I suppose that is part of it," she said, smiling. "Come, Stephen."

It was like music, but a cold music that chilled me. She should have hesitated, should have flushed--it was I who trembled. So I followed her across the broad plank into our new home.

"This is our sitting-room. Look, how charming!"

It was better than charming; it was home indeed. Windows at each side opening down almost to the water, a little table for meals that lived mostly on the bank, with a grey pot of iris in the middle. Another table for writing, photography, and all the little pursuits of travel.

A bookshelf with some well--worn friends. Two long cushioned chairs.

Two for meals, and a Bokhara rug, soft and pleasant for the feet. The interior was plain unpainted wood, but set so that the grain showed like satin in the rippling lights from the water.

That is the inventory of the place I have loved best in the world, but what eloquence can describe what it gave me, what its memory gives me to this day? And I have no eloquence--what I felt leaves me dumb.

"It is perfect," was all I said as she waved her hand proudly. "It is home."

"And if you had come alone to Kashmir you would have had a great rich boat with electric light and a butler. You would never have seen the people except at meal--times. I think you will like this better.

Well, this is your tiny bedroom, and your bathroom, and beyond the sitting--room are mine. Do you like it all?"

But I could say no more. The charm of her own personality had touched everything and left its fragrance like a flower--breath in the air. I was beggared of thanks, but my whole soul was grat.i.tude. We dined on the bank that evening, the lamp burning steadily in the still air and throwing broken reflections in the water, while the moon looked in upon them through the leaves. I felt extraordinarily young and happy.

The quiet of her voice was soft as the little lap of water against the bows of the boat, and Kahdra, the Orange Imp, was singing a little wordless song to himself as he washed the plates beside us. It was a simple meal, and Vanna, abstemious as a hermit never ate anything but rice and fruit, but I could remember no meal in all my days of luxury where I had eaten with such zest.

"It looks very grand to have so many to wait upon us, doesn't it? But this is one of the cheapest countries in the world though the old timers mourn over present expenses. You will laugh when I show you your share of the cost."

"The wealth of the world could not buy this," I said, and was silent.

"But you must listen to my plans. We must do a little camping the last three weeks before we part. Up in the mountains. Are they not marvellous? They stand like a rampart round us, but not cold and terrible, but "Like as the hills stand round about Jerusalem"--they are guardian presences. And running up into them, high-very high, are the valleys and hills where we shall camp. Tomorrow we shall row through Srinagar, by the old Maharaja's palace."