like a shoaling sea. The earth, like a cup held in the hand of a
god, 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 canals 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 brass 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.