"I've seen more than that," said Roy. "I can tell you, now. I couldn't—before. Let's sit."
And sitting there, on her couch, in her House of Gods, he told the story of his moonlit ride and its culmination; told it in low tones, in swift vivid phrases that came of themselves....
Throughout the telling—and for many minutes afterwards—his father sat motionless; his head on his hand, half shielding his face from view....
"I've only spoken of it to Grandfather," Roy said at last. "And with all my heart, I wish he could see ... that."
Sir Nevil looked up now, and the subdued exaltation in his eyes was wholly new to Roy.
"I've gone a good way beyond wishing," he said. "But again—I was waiting for you. I want to go out there, Roy—with you two, when you're married—and see it all for myself. With care, one could take the thing along, to verify and improve it on the spot. Then—what do you say?—you and I might achieve a larger reproduction—for Grandfather: a gift to Rajputana—my source of inspiration; a tribute ... to her memory, who still lights our lives ... with the inextinguishable lamp of her spirit——"
The last words—almost inaudible—were a revelation to Roy; an illumining glimpse of the true self, that a man hides very carefully from his fellows; and shows—at supreme moments only—to 'a woman when he loves her.'
Shy of their mutual emotion, he laid a hand on his father's arm.
"You can count on me, Dad," he said in the same low tone. "Who knows—one day it might inspire the Rajputs to rebuild their Queen of Cities, in white marble, that she may rise again, immortal through the ages...."
When they stood up to leave the shrine their eyes met in a steadfast look; and there was the same thought behind it. She had given them to each other in a new way; in a fashion all her own.