d the Psalms!"

Roy retorted with the stump of an extinct cigarette. It smote the
offender between the eyebrows, leaving a caste-mark of warm ash to
attest the accuracy of his aim.

"Bull's eye!" Tara scored softly; and Roy, turning on his elbow,
appealed to Broome. "Jeffers, please extinguish him!" ("Jeffers" being a
corruption of G.F., alias Godfather).

Broome laughed. "I had a hazy notion he was your show candidate for the
Indian Civil!"

"He's supposed to be. That's the scandal of it. A mighty lot of interest
he's cultivating in the people and the country he aspires to
administer."

"High art and sloppy sentiment are not in the bond," Cuthbert retorted,
with a wink at Dyan Singh.

That roused Lady Despard. "Insight and sympathy _must_ be in the bond,
unless England and India are to drift apart altogether. The Indian
Civilian should be caught early, like the sailor, and trained on the
spot. Exams make character a side issue. And one might almost say
there's no _other_ issue in the Indian services."

Cuthbert nodded. "Glorious farce, isn't it? They simply cram us like
Christmas turkeys. Efficiency's the war-cry, these enlightened days."

"Too _much_ efficiency," Dyan struck in, with a kindling eye. "Already
turning our ancient cities into nightmares like Manchester and
Birmingham, killing the true sense of beauty, giving us instead the
poison of money and luxury worship. And what result? Just now, when the
West at last begins to notice our genius of colour and design--even to
learn from it--we find it slipping out of our own fingers. Nearly all
the homes of the English educated are like caricatures of your
villas--the worst kind. Yet there are still many on both sides who wish
to make life--not so ugly, to escape a little from gross superstition of
_facts_----"

"Hear, hear!" Broome applauded him. "But I'm afraid, my dear boy, the
Time Spirit is out to make tradesmen and politicians of us all. Thank
God, the soul of a race lives in its books, its philosophy and art."

"Very well then"--Roy was the speaker,--"the obvious remedy lies in
getting the souls of both races into closer touch--philosophy, art, and
all that--eh, Jeffers? That's what we're after--Dyan and I--on the lines
of that society Dad belongs to."

Broome looked thoughtfully from one to the other. "A tall order," said
he.

"A vision splendid!" said Lady Despard.

Roy leaned eagerly towards her. "_You_ don't sneer at dreams, Aunt
Helen."