"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