This—in the presence of Arúna and her husband and her six-year-old son!
Roy, deeply moved and a little overcome, nodded assent, while Vincent took her by the arms and gently removed her from further temptation.
"Where you'd be, Madam, if talking was rationed——!"
"I'd take it out in kissing—Sir!" she retorted unabashed; while Arúna glanced a little wistfully at Roy, who was fondling Terry and talking nonsense to Vernon. For the boy adored him and was on the brink of tears.
But if he seemed unheeding, he was by no means unaware. He was fighting his own battle in his own way; incidentally, he hoped, helping the girl to fight hers. For he had shaken himself almost free of his delicious yet disturbing illusion, only to be confronted by a more profoundly disturbing reality. Loyal to his promise, tacitly given, he had simply not connected her with the idea of marriage. The queer thrill of her presence was for him quite another affair. Not until that night of wandering in the moonlight had it struck him, with a faint shock, that she might be mistaking his friendliness for—something more. That contact with her had come at a critical moment for himself, was a detail he failed to realise. Beyond the sudden bewildering sensations that prompted his headlong proposal to Tara, he had not felt seriously perturbed by girl or woman; and, in the past four years, life had been filled to overflowing with other things——
That he should love Arúna, deeply and dearly, seemed as simple and natural, as loving Tara. But to fall in love was a risk he had no right to run, either for himself or her. Yet the risk had been run before he awoke to the fact. And the events and emotions of Dewáli night had drawn them irresistibly, dangerously close together. For the racial ferment had been strong in him, as in her. And the darkness, the subtle influence of his Indian dress—her tears—her danger! How could any man, frankly loving her, not be carried a little out of himself? That overmastering impulse to kiss her had startlingly revealed the true forces at work.
After all that, what could he do, but sharply apply the curb and remove himself—for a time—in the devout hope that 'things' had not gone too far? He had not the assurance to suppose she was already in love with him; but patently the possibility was there.
So—like Thea—he had come to see the Delhi inspiration in a new and surprising light. Setting forth in search of Dyán, he was, in effect, running away from himself—and Arúna, no less. If not actually in love, he very soon would be—did he dare to let himself go.
And why not—why not? The old unreasoning rebellion stirred in him afresh. His mother being gone, temptation tugged the harder. Home, without the Indian element, was almost unthinkable. If only he could take back Arúna! But for him there could be no 'if.' He had tacitly given his word—to her. And in any case there was his father—the Sinclair heritage—So all his fine dreams of helping Arúna amounted to this—that it was he who might be driven, in the end, to hurt her more than any of them. Life that looked such a straight-ahead business for most people, seemed to bristle with pitfalls and obstacles for him; all on account of the double heritage that was at once his pride, his inspiration, and his stone of stumbling.