but, through the opalescent mist of his own dreams,
he had seen Dyan in one relation only. Just as well perhaps. Even at
this distance, the idea amazed and angered him. Tara! The arrogance of
it...!

"You didn't know--never thought?... Poor Dyan!" One finger-tip furtively
intercepted a tear that was stealing down the side of her nose.

"I am _too_ silly just now," she apologised meekly. "To me, he only
spoke of it long after, when coming wounded from France. Then I saw how
the bitterness was still there, changing the noble thoughts of his
heart. That is the trouble with Dyan. First--nothing good enough for
England. But too fierce love may bring too fierce hate--if they poison
his mind with cunning words dressed up in high talk of religion----"

"How long since you heard? Have you any address?" Roy dared not
encourage her melting mood.

"Six months now." She stoically blinked back her tears. "Not any word.
Not any address, since he left Calcutta. Last week, I wrote, addressing
to the office of a paper there, because once he said that editor gave
him work. I told him all the pain in my heart. If that letter finds
him--some answer _must_ come."

"Well, if it does, I promise you this much;--I'll unearth him--somehow,
wherever he is----"

"Oh, Roy! I hoped--I knew----!" She clasped her hands to hide their
tremor, and the look in her eyes came perilously near adoration.

Roy had spoken with the cool assurance of his father's race, and without
a glimmering idea how his rash promise was going to be fulfilled. "I'll
do my level utmost, anyhow," he added more soberly. "But there's
you--your home complications----"

She turned her hands outward with the expressive gesture of her race.
"That foolish sadness we _can_ push away. What matter for anything--now?
I rest--I breathe--I am here----!" Her smile shone out, sudden and
brilliant. "Almost like England--this big green garden and children and
sound of playing tennis. Let us be young again. Let us, for a small
time, not remember that all outside is Jaipur and the desert--dusty and
hot and cruel; and dark places full of secret and terrible things. Here
we are safe. Here it is almost England!"

Her gallant appeal so moved him, and the lighter vein so charmingly
became her, that Roy humoured her mood willingly enough....

When his tea arrived, she played hostess with an alluring mixture of
shyness and happy importance, capping his lively sallies with the quick
wit of old