"
"But you see," she said delicately, "it would be 'giving up.' You
use the right word. It is not your life. It is a lovely holiday,
no more. You would weary of it. You would want the city life and
your own kind."
I protested with all my soul.
"No. Indeed I will say frankly that it would be lowering yourself
to live a lotus-eating life among my people. It is a life with
which you have no tie. A Westerner who lives like that steps
down; he loses his birthright just as an Oriental does who
Europeanizes himself. He cannot live your life nor you his. If
you had work here it would be different. No - six or eight weeks
more; then go away and forget it."
I turned from her. The serpent was in Paradise. When is he
absent?
On one of the terraces a man was beating a tom-tom, and veiled
women listened, grouped about him in brilliant colours.
"Isn't that all India?" she said; "that dull reiterated sound? It
half stupefies, half maddens. Once at Darjiling I saw the Lamas'
Devil Dance - the soul, a white-faced child with eyes unnaturally
enlarged, fleeing among a rabble of devils - the evil passions.
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