You walk in the dead cities--the walls have outlived the rivalry of Kings--the white palaces glitter on the hill tops, and the priceless mosaics still hide in the niches.... The fierce upstanding men of the divided beard, their swords girt upon their loins, are fighters still. You know that when you meet them in the Cities of the Living, they have not lost their cult of the sword, their love for the soil, these earth-born. But, what of the women? The gardens are deserted and the baths and robing-rooms, the summer palaces, and the sandal-wood halls of pleasure, and all the dainty or thoughtful arrangements which prove the Rajputni an individual in the eye of her lord--all deserted.... Here, when the King held his moonlight Durbar on the roof of the palace, she had hidden to watch the pomp and circumstance of feudalism, the glitter of jewelled daggers, the soft richness of brocade, or the sheen of those richer garments of light ... and the Lake lay peaceful at her feet, and the twin fortresses frowned watch and ward.... Here she was suttee when her Lord died fighting at the Gate; here she led his armies to victory; here she drank smiling, the poisoned cup, which was to save the honour of a line of Kings.... Down this dusty road, between the high walled mountains, she walked in the procession of women, all garlanded with roses and jasmine, to make oblation before the Goddess of Children. Or, now again it is “the Festival of Flowers” itself; the grain has sprouted and the women go with singing and dancing to bathe in the sacred Lake before they carry to their lords the green sprig which, worn in the turban, is sign of love and unity. It is the Women’s Festival. No man may take part in it; but the grim men of the grim mountains, with love and reverence at their hearts, stand at the salute--a guard of honour for the women as they pass. Or now she is in trouble--her lord is at the wars, and her little ones are defenceless in the Fortress which overlooks the desert ... what shall she do? She sends her bracelet, and a strand of silk, a circlet of gold--it is but a symbol, to him whom hereby she calls her Brother, “Bracelet-bound-Brother”--and hereafter her soul knows no fear. And he? the Brother--whose but hers is his devotion, his life; and he gives both willingly, albeit knowing he may never even see the face of her he serves. Not the crassest mind would attach the smallest scandal to the relationship.... And perhaps selflessness in love, the love of a man, has seldom in India reached a higher level.... And that brings me to a reminiscence.