of marriage, it is taught that without sharing spiritual life
there cannot arrive true union," she had explained, not without secret
tremors lest she fail to evoke full response. And what such failure
would mean, for her, she could hardly expect him to understand.

But--by the blessing of Sarasvati, Giver of Wisdom--she had succeeded,
beyond hope, in dispelling the shy reluctance of his race to talk of the
'big little things.' Even to-day she could recall the thrill of that
moment:--he, kneeling beside the great chair in his studio--their
sanctuary; she holding the warm bundle of new life against her breast.

In one long look his eyes had answered her. "Nothing _short_ of 'true
union' will satisfy me," he had said with a quiet seriousness more
impressive than any lovers' fervour. "God knows if I'm worthy to enter
your inner shrine. But unwilling--never. In the 'big little things' you
are pre-eminent. I am simply your extra child--mother of my son."

That tribute was her charter of wifehood. It linked love with life; it
set her, once for all, beyond the lurking fear of Jane; and gave her
courage to face the promised visit to India, when Roy was six months
old, to present him to his grandfather, Sir Lakshman Singh.

They had stayed nearly a year; a wonderful year of increasing knowledge,
of fuller awakening ... and yet!

The ache of anticipation had been too poignant. The foolish half-hope
that Mataji might relent and sanctify this first grandchild with her
blessing, was--in the nature of things Oriental--foredoomed to failure.
And not till she found herself back among sights and sounds hauntingly
familiar, did she fully awake to the changes wrought in her by marriage
with one of another race. For, if she had profoundly affected Nevil's
personality, he had no less profoundly influenced her sense of values
both in art and life.

She had also to reckon with the insidious process of idealising the
absent. Indian to the core, she was deeply imbued with the higher tenets
of Hindu philosophy--that lofty spiritual fabric woven of moonlight and
mysticism, of logic and dreams. But the new Lilamani, of Nevil's making,
could not shut her eyes to debasing forms of worship, to subterranean
caverns of gross superstition, and lurking demons of cruelty and
despair. While Nevil was imbibing impressions of Indian Art, Lilamani
was secretly weighing and probing the Indian spirit that inspired it;
sifting the grain from the chaff--a pro