further. He didn't offer her a seat or give her a chance to take
herself off gracefully. And Nanny was beginning to feel a little
awkward. She wasn't used to being ignored in this strange fashion.

"Are you very old?" the minister asked suddenly and looked up at her
with eyes as innocent and serene as a child's.

"I'm twenty-three," Nan was startled into confessing.

"Why aren't you married?"

As she gasped and searched about for an answer he added:

"In India a girl is a grandmother at that age."

"This isn't India," smiled Nan good-naturedly, for she saw quite
suddenly that this big young man knew very little about women,
especially western women.

"No--this isn't India." He repeated her words slowly, little wrinkles
of pain ruffling his face. For his inner eye was blotting out the
Green Valley picture and painting in its stead the India of his memory,
the India of gorgeous color, the bazaars, the narrow streets; the India
that held within its mystic arms two plain white stones standing side
by side and bearing the inscriptions "Father" and "Mother."

Nan, not guessing what was going on in his heart, took advantage of his
silence to get even.

"How old are you?"