world of magic where every moment was pure gold. Surely - surely
to Vanna it must be the same. I believed in my very soul that she
who gave and shared such joy could not be utterly apart from me?
Could I then feel certain that I had gained any ground in these
days we had been together? Could she still define the cruel
limits she had laid down, or were her eyes kinder, her tones a
more broken music? I did not know. Whenever I could hazard a
guess the next minute baffled me.

Just then, in the sunset, she was sitting on deck, singing under
her breath and looking absently away to the Gardens across the
Lake. I could catch the words here and there, and knew them.

"Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now - who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway far,
Before you agonize them in farewell?"

"Don't!" I said abruptly. It stung me.

"What?" she asked in surprise. "That is the song every one
remembers here. Poor Laurence Hope! How she knew and loved this
India! What are you grumbling at?"

Her smile stung me.

"Never mind," I said morosely. "You don't understand. You never
will."

And yet I believed sometimes that she would - that time was on my