Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/119

Rh the Great and Cyrus, while automobiles fly by, electric lights prick the blue mists of distance, and night falls with tropic swiftness.

The Viceroy and his wife together hold a drawing-room a few days after Christmas, when a procession of women winds slowly up the white staircase of Government House lined with red-coated red-turbaned servants, and past the many barriers to the throne-room, where the knee is bent to vice-royalty, and one train and bouquet give way to the long procession of trains and bouquets. One does not soon forget the scenes of Lord Curzon's rule in India. The Viceroy, in his white satin small-clothes, girt with his orders and stars and the insignia of the Garter, and Lady Curzon, that supremely beautiful woman of her day, on the daïs beside him in glittering tiara and ropes of pearls, her long train rippling away over the edge of the steps, remind one of certain of David's historical pictures. Lady Curzon has held all native and Anglo-India under the spell of her charm during her stay. There could be no rivalry in beauty, and her unfailing tact and sweet gentleness carry all before her. The Indian people exhausted the imagery of their several hundred languages to describe her beauty, the sun, moon, stars, jewels, and all the goddesses and gopis of their pantheon being drawn into comparison to describe the lovely "Lady Sahib."

A still larger company of men are presented to the Viceroy, receiving alone, at the levee, and then the state balls and state dinners, small dinners and dances rapidly succeed one another, while the Vice-