"It is perhaps a very brief moment, but it
is unclouded. We are just glad and happy to be alive in such a lovely
world, and all the outward circumstances which make our lot hard and
bitter are forgotten. Great and little worries are put on one side,
and we can feel like children to whom the past and future is nothing
and the present everything."
"I know what you mean," Nehal Singh answered, "and the hours spent
with you are always those which no one can ever take from me."
She bent over her horse and stroked the glossy coat with her gloved
hand. Then she remembered that she would never ride him again, and the
thought pained her. It was _his_ horse, and this was their last ride
together, though he did not know it. She was going to tell the
truth--or something like the truth--now. No, not now--later on, when
they turned homeward. Then she would tell him, and it would be well
over. But there was no hurry. All that was still in the future. The
moment was hers--a happy moment full of unalloyed charm such as she
had never known in her barren, profitless life. She was not going to
throw it away unless he forced her, and hitherto he had made no
attempt to lead the conversation out of the usual channels.
It was the first time that they were alone together since the eventful
evening at the club, and in the intervening week enough had happened
to give them food for intercourse. By mutual consent, the accident of
the chandelier was not touched upon.
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