But on the point at issue I knew he could scarcely go against his own convictions, so I pressed home his duty of taking the initiative. He agreed, gently. By-and-by, perhaps, when his wife was more fit for the ordeal. And it was natural, even the _mem-sahiba_ must allow, for unaccustomed modesty to shrink. She was to the full as devoted as he to the good cause, but at the same time--Finally, the _mem-sahiba_ must remember that women were women all over the world--even though occasionally one was to be found like the _mem-sahiba_ capable of acting as secretary to innumerable committees without a blush. There was something so wistful in his eager blending of flattery and excuse that I yielded for the time, though determined in the end to carry my point. With this purpose I reverted to plum-puddings once more, and, I fear, to gross bribery of all kinds in the shape of private interviews and soft words. Finally I succeeded in getting half the members to consent to sending their wives to an after-dark at-home in my drawing-room, provided always that Mir Futteh Deen, the Reformer, would set a good example. He looked troubled when I told him, and pointed out that the responsibility for success or failure now lay virtually with him, yet he did not deny it. I took elaborate precautions to ensure the most modest seclusion on the appointed evening, even to sending my husband up a ladder to the gallery at the very top of the dome to smoke his after-dinner cigar. I remember thinking how odd it must have looked to him perched up there to see the twinkling lights of the distant city over the soft shadows of the _ferash_ trees, and at his feet the glimmer of the white screens set up to form a conventional _zenân-khâna_. But I waited in vain--in my best dress, by the way. No one came, though my ayah assured me that several jealously-guarded _dhoolies_ arrived at the garden-gate and went away again when Mrs. Futteh Deen never turned up. I was virtuously indignant with the offender, and the next time he came to see me sent out a message that I was otherwise engaged. I felt a little remorseful at having done so, however, when, committee-day coming round, the Reformer was reported on the sick-list. And there he remained until after the first rain had fallen, bringing with it the real Indian spring--the spring full of roses and jasmines, of which the poets and the bul-buls sing. By this time the novelty had worn off philanthropy and plum-pudding, so that often we had a difficulty in getting a quorum together to resolve anything; and I, personally, had begun to weary for the dazzled eyes and the eager voice so full of sanguine hope. Therefore it gave me a pang to learn from the Vice-President, who, being a Government official, was a model of punctuality, that in all probability I should never hear or see either one or the other again. Futteh Deen was dying of the rapid decline which comes so often to the Indian student.