for acting as nurse, and she
squabbled weekly with her Mamma as to the percentage to be given towards
housekeeping. When the quarrel was over, Michele D'Cruze used to shamble
across the low mud wall of the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis
after the fashion of the Borderline, which is hedged about with much
ceremony. Michele was a poor, sickly weed and very black; but he had his
pride. He would not be seen smoking a huqa for anything; and he looked
down on natives as only a man with seven-eighths native blood in his
veins can. The Vezzis Family had their pride too. They traced their
descent from a mythical plate-layer who had worked on the Sone Bridge
when railways were new in India, and they valued their English origin.
Michele was a Telegraph Signaller on Rs. 35 a month. The fact that he
was in Government employ made Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the shortcomings of
his ancestors.

There was a compromising legend--Dom Anna the tailor brought it from
Poonani--that a black Jew of Cochin had once married into the D'Cruze
family; while it was an open secret that an uncle of Mrs. D'Cruze was at
that very time doing menial work, connected with cooking, for a Club in
Southern India! He sent Mrs D'Cruze seven rupees eight annas a month;
but she felt the disgrace to the family very keenly all the same.

However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. Vezzis brought herself
to overlook these blemishes and gave her consent to the marriage of her
daughter with Michele, on condition that Michele should have at least
fifty rupees a month to start married life upon. This wonderful prudence
must have been a lingering touch of the mythical plate-layer's Yorkshire
blood; for across the Borderline people take a pride in marrying when
they please--not when they can.

Having regard to his departmental prospects, Miss Vezzis might as well
have asked Michele to go away and come back with the Moon in his pocket.
But Michele was deeply in love with Miss Vezzis, and that helped him to
endure. He accompanied Miss Vezzis to Mass one Sunday, and after Mass,
walking home through the hot stale dust with her hand in his, he swore
by several Saints, whose names would not interest you, never to forget
Miss Vezzis; and she swore by her Honor and the Saints--the oath runs
rather curiously; "In nomine Sanctissimae--" (whatever the name of the
she-Saint is) and so forth, ending with a kiss on the forehead, a kiss
on the left cheek, and a kiss on the mouth--n