d the snake-headed buds lolling upon them with the
slippery half-sinister look that water-flowers have, as though their
cold secret life belonged to the hidden water world and not to ours. But
now the boat was touching the little wooden steps.

O beautiful--most beautiful the green lawns, shaded with huge pyramids
of the chenar trees, the terraced gardens where the marble steps climbed
from one to the other, and the mountain streams flashed singing and
shining down the carved marble slopes that cunning hands had made to
delight the Empress of Beauty, between the wildernesses of roses. Her
pavilion stands still among the flowers, and the waters ripple through
it to join the lake--and she is--where? Even in the glory of sunshine
the passing of all fair things was present with me as I saw the empty
shell that had held the Pearl of Empire, and her roses that still bloom,
her waters that still sing for others.

The spray of a hundred fountains was misty diamond dust in the warm air
laden with the scent of myriad flowers. Kahdra followed us everywhere,
singing his little tuneless happy song. The world brimmed with beauty
and joy. And we were together. Words broke from me.

"Vanna, let it be for ever! Let us live here. I'll give up all the world
for this and you."

"But you see," she said delicately, "it would be 'giving up.' You use
the right word. It is not your life. It is a lovely holiday, no more.
You would weary of it. You would want the city life and your own kind."

I protested with all my soul.

"No. Indeed I will say frankly that it would be lowering yourself to
live a lotus-eating life among my people. It is a life with which you
have no tie. A Westerner who lives like that steps down; he loses his
birthright just as an Oriental does who Europeanizes himself. He cannot
live your life nor you his. If you had work here it would be different.
No--six or eight weeks more; then go away and forget it."

I turned from her. The serpent was in Paradise. When is he absent?

On one of the terraces a man was beating a tom-tom, and veiled women
listened, grouped about him in brilliant colours.

"Isn't that all India?" she said; "that dull reiterated sound? It
half stupefies, half maddens. Once at Darjiling I saw the Lamas' Devil
Dance--the soul, a white-faced child with eyes unnaturally enlarged,
fleeing among a rabble of devils--the evil passions. It fled wildly
here and there and every way was blocked. The child fell