It was evident to Georgia that Nur Jahan was comforting herself with the thought that her husband was very unlike his father, while the Queen expected that in course of time he would exactly resemble him; but she saw that the excitement was bad for her patient, and interposed prosaically, with a suggestion as to the preparation of beef-tea, which Nur Jahan took up at once, displaying practical powers which encouraged Georgia to give her a first lesson in home nursing. But in spite of this cheering fact, Georgia’s heart still ached as she was carried back to the Mission in her litter, for she could not forget the contrast between the girlish form of Nur Jahan and the bowed and broken figure of the old Queen, who seemed so sure that her daughter-in-law’s life must one day come to resemble her own. But there was a trait in Nur Jahan’s character which had no part in that of the Queen, and which would go far to render her lot even harder--the adventurous spirit which her mother-in-law so bitterly resented, and which had caused her to find a certain enjoyment in the shifts and devices to which her husband had been obliged to have recourse in order to see her. “Jahan Beg ought to have escaped from the country and brought her to England, as he thought of doing,” was Georgia’s mental comment. “It is his spirit she inherits, and it is cruel of him to rest satisfied with the life to which he has condemned her. She is ready to welcome any excitement, even of a disagreeable kind, as a relief to the monotony of her existence. I can see that she is pining for outside interests, though she doesn’t know it. In a man of English blood this would seem quite natural and proper to every one, and why should it be different for a woman? And what a life it is to which she has to look forward! Even if Rustam Khan keeps his promise and marries no other wife, she can only spend her days in doing nothing. Nothing to do for husband or children, in the house or outside, and to be surrounded by a number of other women as idle as herself! ‘Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.’ I had rather have my thirty-two years of life than the poor Queen’s fifty, queen and wife and mother though she is. Her only advantage in being Queen is that she must not do the little pieces of work which would have fallen to her in another position. As a wife she has to share her husband with an indefinite number of other women, and as a mother she sees her sons treated like Rustam Khan, and her daughters condemned to the same kind of life as herself. Perhaps Nur Jahan’s children may inherit enough of her character to enable them to break the spell; but I am afraid the change won’t come in her time. The East moves so slowly.”