“Long this member of the cabinet talked while my hostess and chaperon guarded us from interruption. We surveyed the policies and hopes and fears of India. One hour later as he kissed my hand, he whispered: ‘Who knows! Your Highness may take back an English Maharajah to share your throne!’ I looked at him in dumb astonishment; then slowly I saw light. Long months I pondered over that hint.
“And when the Armistice actually came I had had a glorious vision. I was ready to forgive England and Europe. They were but masses of shortsighted fallible men, like all of us. We had all slept. Now the world was awake.
“There was no real line of birth or race or color. I loved them all. The nightmare was ended. The world was free. The world was sane. The world was good. The world was Peace. For the first time in my life and the last, I was English; a loyal subject of the Emperor then in Buckingham Palace—I with a thousand years of royalty behind me. I saw New India, a proud and free nation in the great free sisterhood of the British Raj.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Matthew. “There was a moment then when I loved America. I cannot conceive it now.”
“It was so natural that that which happened should happen just then as I was exalted, blind with ideal fervor, and set to see God and love everywhere. I saw the man first in Piccadilly on that night of nights. He was my knight in shining armor: tall, spare, and fair, with cool gray eyes, his arm in a sling, his khaki smooth and immaculate, his long limbs golden-booted and silver-spurred. I turned and lighted the cigarette for him when I saw him fumbling. Then I looked up at him in startled wonder, unconsciously held out my hand to him, and he kissed it gravely. I did not then dream that he knew me and my station.
“We met weeks later and were presented at that country estate down in Surrey where I had convalesced from my excursion to the front. It was so typically an English traditional setting—so quiet, sweet, and green; so gracious, restful, and comforting, cushioned for every curve and edge of body and soul. Evil, poverty, cruelty seemed so far removed as to be impossible—some far-off half-mythical giant and ogre about which one could argue and smile and explain, while deft servants and endless land and wealth made life a beautiful and a perfect thing.
“He came down for a weekend. His arm had been amputated above the elbow and I was desperately sorry for this maimed fellow, scarcely thirty-five, broken in his very morning of life. He was neither handsome, witty, nor really educated in any broad way; but his silence and self-repression, his stiff formality, his adherence to his social code, became him. One could imagine depth of thought, fire of emotion, power of command, all sealed and hidden in that fine body. He wooed me in the only way that I was then accessible—not by impetuous word or attempted array of learning, but by silent deference. He was always waiting; always bowing gravely; always rising to his feet and standing at attention with his poor maimed arm, and always insistently arranging my cushions and chairs with his lone hand.
“Then too, to complete the setting and push me by my own pride into what I might otherwise have paused before, there was the young Marchioness of Thorn. She was penniless, plain but stately; and, as everyone knew and saw, hopelessly in love with my cavalier, Captain the Honorable Malcolm Fortescue-Dodd. As an earl’s youngest son, Malcolm also had naught but his commission. Once I thought he loved her as she loved him. Then I decided not. Perhaps my decision was easier because of her evident dislike for me.
“At first I literally did not notice the Marchioness of Thorn. Then when I sought to atone and be gracious, I realized with astonishment that she was actually trying to be distant and patronizing with me! Patronizing, mind you, to a Maharanee of Bwodpur and Sindrabad! I was at first amused and then half angry, and finally, as guest of honor, I completely ignored this haughty lady and in sheer revenge annexed as my knight Captain the Honorable Malcolm.
“Even then I was startled when with scant delay he formally asked my hand in marriage. It was in a way a singular sort of innovation. Native Indian Princesses were recognized as reigning monarchs by England, but there had never been formal marital alliances, because it would have involved difficulties of rank and religion on both sides; and then, too, our princesses were usually married long before they saw England or knew Englishmen. In this case, however, a scion of ancient English nobility, albeit but a penniless and untitled younger son, was asking a reigning Indian princess in marriage. Should I—could I—accept? Was I lowering my rank? Was I helping or hindering India?
“A discreet emissary of the India Office came down and discussed matters with me. It seemed that in the new world that was dawning, much of the old order was changing. Indian affairs must soon assume a new status. Should India emerge with new freedom and self-determination as a country entirely separate in race, religion, and politics from Mother England? Or as one allied by interest and even intermarriage? It was an astonishing argument, and—was it not natural?—I was flattered. I saw myself as the first princess of a new order, and while theoretically I held myself the equal of British royalty itself and certainly would have preferred a duke or marquis or even an earl in his own right, yet—and even this was discreetly hinted—earldoms and marquisates were often created for loyal and ambitious servants of the state.
“This very
