FOOTNOTES:
[17] At once.
CHAPTER XII.
| "God uses us to help each other so." |
| —Browning. |
It was distinctly one of Roy's great moments when, at last, they four stood together in Sir Lakshman's room: the old man, outwardly impassive—as became a Rajput—profoundly moved in the deep places of his heart; Arúna, in Oxford gown and sari, radiant one moment; the next—in spite of stoic resolves—crying softly in Dyán's arms. And Roy understood only too well. The moment he held her hand and met her eyes—he knew. It was not only joy at Dyán's return that evoked the veiled blush, the laugh that trembled into tears. Conceit or no conceit, his intuition was not to be deceived.
And the conviction did not pass. It was confirmed by every day, every hour he spent in her company. On the rare occasions, when they were alone together, the very thing that must be religiously stifled and hid, emanated from her like fragrance from a flower; sharply reawakening his own temptation to respond—were it only to ease her pain. And there was more in it than that—or very soon would be, if he hesitated much longer to clinch matters by telling her the truth; though every nerve shrank from the ordeal—for himself and her. Running away from oneself was plainly a futile experiment. To have so failed with her, disheartened him badly and dwarfed his proud achievement to an insignificant thing.
To the rest, unaware, his triumph seemed complete, his risky adventure justified beyond cavil. They all admitted as much;—even Vincent, who abjured superlatives and had privately taken failure for granted. Roy, in a fit of modesty, ascribed it all to 'luck.' By the merest chance he had caught Dyán, on his own confession, just as the first flickers of doubt were invading his hypnotised soul; just when it began to dawn on him that alien hands were pulling the strings. He had already begun to feel trapped; unwilling to go forward; unable to go back; and the fact that no inner secrets were confided to him, had galled his Rajput vanity and pride. In the event, he was thankful enough for the supposed slight; since it made him feel appreciably safer from the zeal of his discarded friends.
Much of this he had confided to Roy, in fragments and jerks, on the night of their amazing exit from Delhi; already sufficiently himself again to puzzle frankly over that perverted Dyán; to marvel—with a simplicity far removed from mere foolishness—"how one man can make a magic in other men's minds so that he shall appear to them an eagle when he is only a crow."
"That particular form of magic," Roy told him, "has made half the history of the world. We all like to flatter ourselves we're safe from it—till we get bitten! You've been no more of a fool than the others, Dyán—if that's any consolation."
The offending word rankled a little. The truth of it rankled more. "By Indra, I am no fool now. Perhaps he has discovered that already. I fancy my letter will administer a shock. I wonder what he will do?"
"He won't 'do.' You can bank on that. He may fling vitriol over you on paper. But you won't have the pleasure of his company at Jaipur. He left his card on us before the Dewáli. And there's been trouble since; leaflets circulating mysteriously; an exploded attempt to start a seditious 'rag.' So they're on the qui vive. He'll count that one up against me: but I'll manage to survive."
And Dyán, in the privacy of his heart, had felt distinctly relieved. Not that he lacked the courage of his race; but, having seen the man for years, as it were, through a magnifying lens, he could not, all in a moment, see him for the thing he was:—dangerous as a snake, yet swift as a snake to wriggle out of harm's way.
He had not been backward, however, in awakening his grandfather to purdah manœuvres. Strictly in private—he told his cousin—there had been ungoverned storms of temper, ungoverned abuse of Roy, who was suspected by 'the Inside' of knowing too much and having undue influence with the old man. 'The Inside,' he gathered, had from early days been jealous of the favourite daughter and all her belongings. Naturally, in Dyán's opinion, his sister ought to marry; and the sooner the better. Perhaps he had been unwise, after all, insisting on postponement. By now she would have been settled in her lawful niche instead of making trouble with this craze for hospital nursing and keeping outside caste. Not surprising if she shrank from living at home, after all she had been through. Better for them both, perhaps, to break frankly with orthodox Hinduism and join the Brahma Samáj.
As Roy knew precisely how much—or rather, how little—Arúna liked working in the wards, he suffered a pang at the pathos of her innocent guile. And if Dyán had his own suspicions, he kept them to himself. He also kept to himself the vitriolic outpouring which he had duly found awaiting him at Jaipur. It contained too many lurid allusions to 'that conceited, imperialistic half-caste cousin of yours'; and Roy might resent the implied stigma as much as Dyán resented it for him. So he tore up the effusion, intended for the eye of Roy, merely remarking that it had enraged him. It was beneath contempt.
Roy would like to have seen it, all the same; for he knew himself quicker than Dyán at reading between the lines. The beggar would not hit back straight. But given the chance, he might try it on some other way—witness the pistol-shot in the arcade; a side light—or a side flash—on the pleasant sort of devil he was!
Back in the Jaipur Residency, in the garden that was 'almost England,' back in his good familiar tweed coat and breeches, the whole Delhi interlude seemed strangely theatrical and unreal; more like a vivid dream than an experience in the flesh.
But there was Dyán to prove it no dream; and the perilous charm of Arúna, that must be resisted to the best of his power....
All this stir and ferment within; yet not a surface ripple disturbed the flow of those uneventful weeks between the return of Roy and the coming of Lance Desmond for Christmas leave.
It is thus that drama most often happens in life—a light under a bushel; set in the midst, yet unseen. Vincent, delving in ethnological depths, saw little or nothing outside his manuscript and maps. Floss Eden—engrossed in her own drawing-room comedy with Captain Martin—saw less than nothing, except that 'Mr Sinclair's other native cousin' came too often to the house. For she turned up her assertive nose at 'native gentlemen'; and confided to Martin her private opinion that Aunt Thea went too far in that line. She bothered too much about other people all round—which was true.
She had bothered a good deal more about Floss Eden, in early days, than that young lady at all realised. And now—in the intervals of organising Christmas presents and Christmas guests—she was bothering a good deal over Roy, whose absence had obviously failed to clear the air.
Not that he was silent or aloof. But his gift of speech overlaid a reticence deeper than that of the merely silent man; the kind she had lived with and understood. Once you got past their defences, you were unmistakably inside:—Vinx, for instance. But with Roy she was aware of reserves within reserves, which made him the more interesting, but also the more distracting, when one felt entitled to know the lie of the land. For, Arúna apart, wasn't he becoming too deeply immersed in his Indian relations—losing touch, perhaps, with those at home? Did it—or did it not matter—that, day after day, he was strolling with Arúna, riding with Dyán, pig-sticking and buck-hunting with the royal cheetahs and the royal heir to the throne; or plunging neck deep in plans and possibilities, always in connection with those two? His mail letters were few and not bulky, as she knew from handling the contents of the Residency mail-bag. And he very rarely spoke of them all: less than ever of late. To her ardent nature it seemed inexplicable. Perhaps it was just part of his peculiar 'inwardness.' She would have liked to feel sure, however....
Vinx would say it was none of her business. But Lance would be a help. She was counting on him to readjust the scales. Thank goodness for Lance—giving up the Lahore 'week' and the Polo Tournament to spend Christmas with her and Roy in the wilds of Rajputana. Just to have him about the place again—his music, his big laugh, his radiant certainty that, in any and every circumstance, it was a splendid thing to be alive—would banish worries and lift her spirits sky-high. After the still, deep waters of her beloved Vinx—whose strain of remoteness had not been quite dispelled by marriage—and the starlit mysteries of Arúna and the intriguing complexities of Roy, a breath of Lance would be tonic as a breeze from the Hills. He was so clear and sure; not in flashes and spurts, but continuously, like sunshine; because the clearness and sureness had his whole personality behind them. And he could be counted on to deal faithfully with Roy; perhaps lure him back to the Punjab. It would be sad losing him; but in the distracting circumstances, a clean cut seemed the only solution. She would just put in a word to that effect: a weakness she had rarely been known to resist, however complete her faith in the man of the moment.
She simply dared not think of Arúna, who trusted her. It seemed like betrayal—no less. And yet...?
CHAPTER XIII.
| "One made out of the better part of earth, |
| A man born as at sunrise." |
| —Swinburne. |
It was all over—the strenuous joy of planning and preparing. Christmas itself was over. From the adjacent borders of British India, five lonely ones had been gathered in. There was Mr Mayne, Commissioner of Delhi, Vincent's old friend of Kohat days, unmarried and alone in camp with a stray Settlement Officer, whose wife and children were at Home. There was Mr Bourne—in the Canals—large-boned and cadaverous, with a sardonic gleam in his eye. Rumour said there had once been a wife and a friend; now there remained only work and the whisky bottle; and he was overdoing both. To him Thea devoted herself and her fiddle with particular zest. The other two lonelies—a Mr and Mrs Nair—were medical missionaries, fighting the influenza scourge in the Delhi area; drastically disinfected—because of the babies; more than thankful for a brief respite from their daily diet of tragedy, and from labours Hercules' self would not have disdained. For all that, they had needed a good deal of pressing. They had 'no clothes.' They were very shy. But Thea had insisted; so they came—clothed chiefly in shyness and gratitude, which made them shyer than ever.
Roy, still new to Anglo-India, was amazed at the way these haphazard humans were thawed into a passing intimacy by the sunshine of Thea's personality. For himself, it was the nearest approach to the real thing that he had known since that dear and dreamlike Christmas of 1916. It warmed his heart, and renewed the well-spring of careless happiness that had gone from him utterly since the blow fell; gone, so he believed, for ever.
Something of this she divined—and was glad. Yet her exigent heart was not altogether at ease. His reaction to Lance, though unmistakable, fell short of her confident expectation. He was still squandering far too much time on the other two. Sometimes she felt almost angry with him: jealous—for Lance. She knew how deeply he cared underneath; because she too was a Desmond. And Desmonds could not care by halves.
This morning, for instance, the wretch was out riding with Dyán; and there was Lance, alone in the drawing-room strumming the accompaniments of things they would play to-night: just a wandering succession of chords in a minor key; but he had his father's gift of touch, that no training can impart, and the same trick of playing pensively to himself, almost as if he were thinking aloud. It was five years since she had seen her father; and those pensive chords brought sudden tears to her eyes.
What did Lance mean by it—mooning about the piano like that? Had he fallen in love? That was one of the few questions she did not dare ask him. But here was her chance to 'put in a word' about Roy.
So she strolled into the drawing-room and leaned over the grand piano. His smile acknowledged her presence, and his pensive chords went wandering softly away into the bass.
"Idiot—what are you doing?" she asked briskly, because the music was creeping down her spine. "Talking to yourself?"
"More or less."
"Well—give over. I'm here. And it's a bad habit."
He shook his head, and went wandering on. "In this form I find it soothing and companionable."
"Well, you oughtn't to be needing either at Christmas time under my roof, with Roy here and all—if he'd only behave. Sometimes I want to shake him——"
"Why—what's the matter with Roy?"—That innocent query checked her rush of protest in mid career. Had he not even noticed? Men were the queerest, dearest things!—--"He looks awfully fit. Better all round. He's pulling up. You never saw him—you don't realise——"
"But, my dear boy, do you realise that he's getting rather badly bitten with all this—Indian problems and Indian cousins——"
Lance nodded. "I've been afraid of that. But one can't say much."
"I can't. I was counting on you as the God-given antidote. And there he is, still fooling round with Dyán, when you've come all this way ... It makes me wild. It isn't fair——"
Her genuine distress moved Lance to cease strumming and bestow a friendly pat on her hand. "Don't be giving yourself headaches and heartaches over Roy and me, darlint. We're going strong, thanks very much! It would take an earthquake to throw us out of step. If he chose to chuck his boots at me, I wouldn't trouble—except to return the trees if they were handy! Strikes me women don't yet begin to understand the noble art of friendship——"
"Which is a libel—but let that pass! Besides—hasn't it struck you? Arúna——"
"My God!" His hands dropped with a crash on the keyboard. Then, in a low swift rush: "Thea, you don't mean it—you're pulling my leg."
"Bible-oath I'm not. It's too safely tucked under the piano!"
"My God!" he repeated softly, ignoring her incurable frivolity. "Has he said anything?"
"No. But it's plain they're both smitten more or less."
"Smitten be damned."
"Lance! I won't have Arúna insulted. Let me tell you she's charming and cultivated; much better company than Floss. And I love her like a daughter——"
"Would you have her marry Roy?" he flung out wrathfully.
"Of course not. But still——"
"Me—perhaps?" he queried with such fine scorn that she burst out laughing.
"You priceless gem! You are the unadulterated Anglo-Indian!"
"Well—what else would I be? What else are you, by the same token?"
"Not adulterated," she denied stoutly. "Perhaps a wee bit less 'prejudiced.' The awful result, I suppose, of failing to keep myself scrupulously detached from my surroundings. Besides, you couldn't be married twenty years to that Vinx and not widen out a bit. Of course I'm quite aware that widening out has its insidious dangers and limitation its heroic virtues—Hush! Don't fly into a rage. You're not limited, old boy. You loved—Lady Sinclair."
"I adored her," Lance said very low; and his fingers strayed over the keys again. "But—she was an accomplished fact. And—she was one in many thousands. She's gone now, though. And there's poor Sir Nevil——"
He rose abruptly and strode over to the fireplace. "Tell you what, Thea. If the bee in Roy's bonnet is buzzing to that tune, some one's got to stop it——"
"That's my point!" She swung round confronting him. "Why not whisk him back to the Punjab? It does seem the only way——"
Lance nodded again. "Now you talk sense. Mind, I don't believe he'll come. Roy's a tougher customer than he looks to the naked eye. But I'll have a shot at it to-night. If needs must, I'll tell him why. I can swallow half a regiment of his Dyáns; but not—the other thing. I hope you find us intact in the morning!"
She flew to him and kissed him with fervour; and she was still in his arms, when Roy strolled casually into the room.
There were only three outsiders that night: the State Engineer and two British officers in the Maharajah's employ. But they sat down sixteen to dinner; and, very shortly after, came three others in the persons of Dyán and Sir Lakshman Singh, with his distinguished friend Mahomed Inayat Khan, from Hyderabad. Nothing Thea enjoyed better than getting a mixed batch of men together and hearing them talk—especially shop; for then she knew their hearts were in it. They were happy.
And to-night, her chance assortment was amazingly varied, even for India:—Army, 'Political,' Civil; P.W.D. and Native States; New India, in the person of Dyán; and not least, the 'medical mish' pair; an element rich in mute inglorious heroism, as the villagers and 'depressed classes' of India know. She took keen delight in the racial interplay of thought and argument, with Roy, as it were, for bridge-builder between. How he would relish the idea! He seemed very much in the vein this evening, especially since his grandfather arrived. He was clearly making an impression on Mr Mayne and Inayat Khan; and a needle-prick of remorse touched her heart. For Arúna, annexed by Captain Martin's subaltern, was watching him too, when she fancied no one was looking; and Lance, attentively silent, was probably laying deep plans for his capture. A wicked shame—but still...!
As a matter of fact, Lance, too, was troubled with faint compunction. He had never seen Roy in this kind of company, nor in this particular vein. And, reluctantly, he admitted that it did seem rather a waste of his mentally reviving vigour hauling him back to the common round of tennis and dances and polo—yes, even sacred polo—when he was so dead keen on this infernal agitation business, and seemed to know such a deuce of a lot about it all.
Lance himself knew far too little; and was anxious to hear more, for the intimate, practical reason that he was not quite happy about his Sikh troop. The Pathan lot were all right. But the Sikhs—his pride and joy—were being 'got at' by those devils in the City. And, if these men could be believed, 'things' were going to be very much worse; not only 'down country,' but also in the Punjab, India's sure shield against the invader. To a Desmond, the mere suggestion of the Punjab turning traitor was as if one impugned the courage of his father or the honour of his mother; so curiously personal is India's hold upon the hearts of Englishmen who come under her spell.
So Lance listened intently, if a little anxiously, to all that Thea's 'mixed biscuits' had to say on that absorbing subject. For to-night shop held the field: if that could be called shop, which vitally concerned the fate of England and India, and of British dominion in the East.
Agitation against the sane measures embodied in the Rowlatt Bills was already astir, like bubbles round a pot before it boils. And Inayat Khan had come straight from Bombay, where the National Congress had rejected with scorn the latest palliative from Home; had demanded the release of all revolutionaries, and wholesale repeal of laws against sedition. Here was shop sufficiently ominous to overshadow all other topics: and there was no gêne, no constraint. The Englishmen could talk freely in the presence of cultured Indians who stood for Jaipur and Hyderabad, since both States were loyal to the core.
Dyán, like Lance, spoke little and pondered much on the talk of these men, whose straight speech and thoughts were refreshing as their own sea breezes after the fumes of rhetoric, the fog of false values that had bemused his brain these three years. Strange how all the ugliness and pain of hate had shrivelled away; how he could even shake hands, untroubled, with that 'imperialistic bureaucrat' the Commissioner of Delhi, whom he might have been told off, any day, to 'remove from this mortal coil.' Strange to sit there, over against him, while he puffed his cigar and talked, without fear, of increasing antagonism, increasing danger to himself and his kind.
"There's no sense in disguising the unpalatable truth that New India hates us," said he in his gruff, deliberate voice. "Present company excepted, I hope!"
He gravely inclined his head towards Dyán, who responded mutely with a flutter at his heart. Impossible! The man could not suspect——?
And the man, looking him frankly in the eyes, added: "The spirit of the Mutiny's not extinct—and we know it, those of us that count."
Dyán simply sat dumfounded. It was Sir Lakshman who said, in his guarded tone: "Nevertheless, sir, the bulk of our people are loyal and peaceable. Only I fear there are some in England who do not count that fact to their credit."
"If they ever become anything else, it won't be to our credit," put in Roy. "If we can't stand up to bluster and sedition with that moral force at our backs, we shall deserve to go under."
"Well spoken, Roy," said his grandfather still more quietly. "Let us hope it is not yet too late. Sadi says, 'The fountain-head of a spring can be blocked with a stick; but in full flood, it cannot be crossed, even on an elephant.'"
They exchanged a glance that stirred Roy's pulses and gave him confidence to go on: "I don't believe it is too late. But what bothers me is this—are we treating our moral force as it deserves? Are we giving them loyalty in return for theirs—the sort they can understand? With a dumb executive and voluble 'patriots,' persuading or intimidating, the poor beggars haven't a dog's chance, unless we openly stand by them; openly smite our enemies—and theirs."
He boldly addressed himself to Mayne, the sole symbol of authority present; and the Commissioner listened, with a gleam of amused approval in his eye.
"You're young, Mr Sinclair—which doesn't mean you're wrong! Most of us, in our limited fashion, are trying to do what we can on those lines. But, after spending half a lifetime in this climate, doing our utmost to give the peasant—and the devil—his due, we're apt to grow cynical——"
"Not to mention suicidal!" grunted the slave of work and whisky. "We Canal coolies—hardly visible to the naked eye—are adding something like an Egypt a year to the Empire. But, bless you, England takes no notice. Only let some underbred planter or raw subaltern bundle an Indian out of his carriage, or a drunken Tommy kick his servant in the spleen, and the whole British Constitution comes down about our ears!"
"Very true, sir—very true!" Inayat Khan leaned forward. His teeth gleamed in the dark of his beard. His large firm-featured face abounded in good sense and good humour. "How shall a man see justly if he holds the telescope wrong way round, as too many do over there. It also remains true, however, that the manners of certain Anglo-Indians create a lot of bad feeling. Your so-called reforms do not interest the masses or touch their imagination. But the boot of the low-class European touches their backs and their pride and hardens their hearts. That is only human nature. In the East a few gold grains of courtesy touch the heart more than a khillat[18] of political hotch-potch. I myself—though it is getting dangerous to say so!—am frankly opposed to this uncontrolled passion for reform. When all have done their duty in this great struggle, why such undignified clamour for rewards, which are now being flung back in the giver's teeth. It has become a vicious circle. It was British policy in the first place—not so?—that stirred up this superficial ferment; and now it grows alarming, it is doctored with larger doses of the same medicine. We Indians who know how little the bulk of India has really changed, could laugh at the tamasha of Western fancy-dress, in small matters; but time for laughing has gone by. Time has come for saying firmly—all rights and aspirations will be granted, stopping short of actual government—otherwise——!"
He flung up his hands, looked round at the listening faces, and realised how completely he had let himself go. "Forgive me, Colonel. I fear I am talking too much," he said in a changed tone.
"Indeed no," Colonel Leigh assured him warmly. "In these difficult days, loyal and courageous friends like yourself are worth their weight in gold mohurs!"
Visibly flattered, the Moslem surveyed his own bulky person with a twinkle of amusement. "If value should go by weight, Inayat Khan would be worth a king's ransom! But I assure you, Colonel, your country has many hundreds of friends like myself all over India, if only she would seek them out and give them encouragement—as Mr Sinclair said—instead of wasting it on volubles, who will never cease making trouble till India is in a blaze."
As the man's patent sincerity had warmed the hearts of his hearers, so the pointed truth of that last pricked them sharply and probed deep. For they knew themselves powerless; mere atoms of the whirling dust-cloud, raised, in passing, by the chariot-wheels of Progress—or perdition?
The younger men rose briskly, as if to shake off some physical discomfort. Dyán—very much aware of Arúna and the subaltern—approached them with a friendly remark. Roy and Lance said, "Play up, Thea! Your innings," almost in a breath—and crooked little fingers.
Thea needed no second bidding. While the men talked, an insidious depression had stolen over her spirit—and brooded there, light and formless as a river mist. Half an hour with her fiddle, and Lance at his best, completely charmed it away. But the creepiness of it had been very real: and the memory remained.
When all the others had dispersed, she lingered over the fire with Roy, while Lance, at the piano, with diplomatic intent, drifted into his friend's favourite Nocturne—the Twelfth; that inimitable rendering of a mood, hushed yet exalted, soaring yet brooding, 'the sky and the nest as well.' The two near the fire knew every bar by heart, but as the liquid notes stole out into the room, their fitful talk stopped dead.
Lance was playing superbly, giving every note its true value; the cadence rising and falling like waves of a still sea; softer and softer; till the last note faded away, ghostlike—a sigh rather than a sound.
Roy remained motionless, one elbow on the mantelpiece. Thea's lashes were wet with the tears of rarefied emotion—tears that neither prick nor burn. The silence itself seemed part of the music; a silence it were desecration to break. Without a word to Roy, she crossed the room; kissed Lance good-night; clung a moment to his hands that had woven the spell, smiling her thanks, her praise; and slipped away, leaving the two together.
Roy subsided into a chair. Lance came over to the fire and stood there warming his hands.
It was a minute or two before Roy looked up and nodded his acknowledgments.
"You're a magician, old chap. You play that thing a damn sight too well."
He did not add that his friend's music had called up a vision of the Home drawing-room, clear in every detail; Lance at the piano—his last week-end from Sandhurst—playing the 'thing' by request; himself lounging on the hearthrug, his head against his mother's knee; the very feel of her silk skirt against his cheek, of her fingers on his hair.... Nor did he add that the vision had spurred his reluctant spirit to a resolve.
The more practical soul of Lance Desmond had already dropped back to earth, as a lark drops after pouring out its heart in the blue. In spite of concern for Roy, he was thinking again of his Sikhs.
"I suppose one can take it," he remarked thoughtfully, "that Vinx and Mayne and that good old Moslem johnny know what they're talking about?"
Roy smiled—having jumped at the connection. "I'm afraid," he said, "one can."
"You think big trouble is coming—organised trouble?"
"I do. That is, unless some 'strong silent man' has the pluck to put his foot down in time, and chance the consequences to himself. Thank God, we've another John Lawrence in the Punjab."
"And it's the Punjab that matters——"
"Especially a certain P.C. Regiment—eh?"
Lance was in arms at once:—that meant he had touched the spot. "No flies on the Regiment. Trust Paul. It's only—I get bothered about a Sikh here and there."
"Quite so. The blighters have taken particular pains with the Sikhs. Realising that they'll need some fighting stuff. And Lahore's a bad place. I expect they sneak off to meetings in the City."
"Devil a doubt of it. Mind you, I trust them implicitly. But, outside their own line, they're credulous as children—you know."
"Rather. In Delhi, I had a fair sample of it."
Another pause. It suddenly occurred to Lance that his precious Sikhs were not supposed to be the topic of the evening. "You're quite fit again, Roy. And those blooming fools chucked you like a cast horse——" he broke out in a spurt of vexation. "I wish to God you were back with your old Squadron."
And Roy said from his heart, "I wish to God I was."
"Paul misses you, though he never says much. The new lot from home are good chaps. Full of brains and theories. But no knowledge. Can't get at the men. You could still help unofficially in all sorts of ways.—Why not come along back with me? Haven't you been pottering round here long enough?"
Roy shook his head. "Thanks all the same, for the invite. Of course I'd love it. But—I've things to do. There's a novel taking shape—and other oddments. I've done precious little writing here. Too much entangled with human destinies. I must bury myself somewhere and get a move on. April it is. I won't fail you."
Lance kicked an unoffending log. "Confound your old novel!"—A portentous silence. "See here, Roy, I don't want to badger you. But—well—if I'm to go back in moderate peace of mind, I want—certain guarantees."
Roy lifted his eyes. Lance frankly encountered them; and there ensued one of those intimate pauses in which the unspeakable is said.
Roy looked away. "Arúna?" He let fall the word barely above his breath.
"Just that."
"You're frightened—both of you? Oh yes—I've seen——" He fell silent, staring into the fire. When he spoke again, it was in the same low, detached tone. "You two needn't worry. The guarantee you're after was given ... in July 1914 ... under the beeches ... at Home. She foresaw—understood. But she couldn't foresee ... the harder tug—now she's gone. The ... association ... and all that."
"Is it—only that?"
"It's mostly that."
To Lance Desmond, very much a man, it seemed the queerest state of things; and he knew only a fragment of the truth.
"Look here, Roy," he urged again. "Wouldn't the Punjab really be best? Aren't you plunging a bit too deep——? Does your father realise? Thea feels——"
"Yes. Thea feels, bless her! But there's a thing or two she doesn't know!" He lifted his head and spoke in an easier voice. "One queer thing—it may interest you. Those few weeks of living as an Indian among Indians—amazingly intensified all the other side of me. I never felt keener on the Sinclair heritage and all it stands for. I never felt keener on you two than all this time while I've been concentrating every faculty on—the other two. Sounds odd. But it's a fact."
"Good. And does—your cousin know ... about the guarantee?"
"When——?"
Roy straightly returned his friend's challenging gaze. "Damn you!" he said softly. Then, in a graver tone: "You're right. I've been shirking it. Seemed a shame to spoil Christmas. Remains—the New Year. I fixed it up—while you were playing that thing, to be exact."
"Did I—contribute?"
"You did—if that gives you any satisfaction!" He rose, stretched himself and yawned ostentatiously. "My God, I wish it was over."
Desmond said nothing. If Roy loved him more for one quality than another, it was for his admirable gift of silence.