His grandmother was still alive. My husband had filled more than
a hundred and twenty per cent of the house with the twentieth
century, against her taste; but she had borne it uncomplaining.
She would have borne it, likewise, if the daughter-in-law [7] of
the Rajah's house had left its seclusion. She was even prepared
for this happening. But I did not consider it important enough
to give her the pain of it. I have read in books that we are
called "caged birds". I cannot speak for others, but I had so
much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the
universe--at least that is what I then felt.
The grandmother, in her old age, was very fond of me. At the
bottom of her fondness was the thought that, with the conspiracy
of favourable stars which attended me, I had been able to attract
my husband's love. Were not men naturally inclined to plunge
downwards? None of the others, for all their beauty, had been
able to prevent their husbands going headlong into the burning
depths which consumed and destroyed them. She believed that I
had been the means of extinguishing this fire, so deadly to the
men of the family.
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