-made Shantung coat and the blunted toe of her white suede
shoe."

Aruna--in plain English, Dawn--was quite arrestingly otherwise. Not
beautiful, like Lilamani, nor quite so fair of skin; but what the face
lacked in symmetry was redeemed by lively play of expression, piquante
tilt of nose and chin, large eyes, velvet-dark like brown pansies. The
modelling of the face--its breadth and roundness and upturned
aspect--gave it a pansy-like air. Over her simple summer frock of
carnation pink she wore a paler sari flecked with gold; and two ropes of
coral beads enhanced the deeper coral of her full lower lip. Not yet
eighteen, she was studying "pedagogy" for the benefit of her less
adventurous sisters in Jaipur.

Clearly a factor to be reckoned with, this creature of girlish laughter
and high purpose; a woman to the tips of her polished finger nails. Yet
Broome had by no means decided that it _was_ the girl----

After Desmond--Dyan Singh: each, in his turn and type, own brother to
Roy's complex soul. Broome--in no insular spirit--preferred the earlier
influence. But Desmond had sped like an arrow to the Border, where his
eldest brother commanded their father's old regiment; and Dyan
Singh--handsome and fiery, young India at its best--reigned in his
stead. The two were of the same college. Dyan, twelve months younger,
looked the older by a year or more. Face and form bore the Rajput stamp
of virility, of a racial pride, verging on arrogance; and the Rajput
insignia of breeding--noticeably small hands and feet.

He was poling the second punt with less skill and assurance than Roy.
His attention was palpably distracted by a vision of Tara among the
cushions in the bows; an arm linked through her mother's, as though
defending her against the implication of being older than any one else,
or in the least degree out of it because of that trifling
detail--tacitly admitted, while hotly denied; which was Tara all over.

Certainly Lady Despard still looked amazingly young; still emanated the
vital charm she had transmitted to her child. And Tara at twenty, in
soft butter-coloured frock with roses in her hat, was a vision alluring
enough to distract any young man from concentration on a punt pole.
Vivid, eager and venturesome, singularly free from the bane of
self-consciousness; not least among her graces--and rare enough to be
notable--was the grace of her chivalrous affection for the older
generation. In Tara's eyes, girls who patr