pped a hand through his father's arm. "That reminds me--I'm
_starving_ hungry! If they're still out, let's be bold, and propitiate
the teapot on our own!"

Lady Roscoe was, after all, a benefactor in her own despite. Her
meteoric visitation had drawn these two closer together than they had
been since schoolroom days.

CHAPTER VII

"Ce que nous quittons c'est une partie de nous meme. II faut mourir
a une vie, pour entrer dans une autre."--ANATOLE FRANCE.

After all, human perversity decreed it should be Roy himself who shrank
most acutely from the wrench of parting, when it loomed near enough to
bring him down from Pisgah heights to the dust of the actual.

Dyan was overjoyed, of course, and untroubled by qualms. Towards the end
of July, he and Aruna came for a brief visit. His excuses for its
brevity struck Roy as a trifle 'thin'; but Dyan kept his secret and paid
Tara Despard the compliment of taking her answer as final.

It was during his visit that Roy suffered the first incipient qualms;
the first sharp contact with practical details:--date of sailing,
details of outfit, the need for engaging a passage betimes. As regards
his destination, matters were simplified by the fact that the new
Resident of Jaipur, Colonel Vincent Leigh, C.S.I., D.S.O., very
considerately happened to be the husband of Desmond's delightful sister
Thea. The schoolboy link between Lance and Roy had created a lasting
friendship between their respective families; and it was General Sir
Theo Desmond--now retired--who had invited Roy, in the name of his
'Twin,' to start with an unlimited visit to the Leighs; the sort of
casual elastic visit that no one would dream of proposing outside
India,--unless it were Ireland, of an earlier, happier day. The prospect
was a secret consolation to Roy. It was also a secret jar to find he
needed every ounce of consolation available.

Very carefully he hid his ignominious frame of mind--even from his
mother; though she probably suspected it and would not fail to
understand. What, precisely, would life be worth without that dear,
daily intimacy--life uncoloured by the rainbow-tinted charm of her
gentle, passionate, humorous, delicately-poised personality? Relations
of such rare quality exact their own pitiless price; and the woman
influence would always be, for Roy--as for most men of genuine gifts and
high purpose--his danger point or salvation. The dim and distant
prospect of parting was