How sharply they tugged at his middle-aged heart, these casual and opinionated young things, with their follies and fanaticisms, their Jacob's ladders hitched perilously to the stars; with their triumphs and failures and disillusions all ahead of them; airily impervious to proffered help and advice from those who would agonise to serve them if they could....
A jarring bump in the small of his back cut short his flagrantly Victorian musings. Dyán's punt was the offender; and Dyán himself, clutching the pole that had betrayed him, was almost pitched into the river.
His achievement was greeted by a shout of laughter, and an ironic "Played indeed!" from Cuthbert Gordon—Broome's grandson. Roy, tumbled from some starry dream of his own, flashed out imperiously: "Look alive, you blithering idiot. 'Who are you a-shoving'?"
The Rajput's face darkened; but before he could retort, Tara had risen and stepped swiftly to his side. Her fingers closed on the pole; and she smiled straight into his clouded eyes.
"Let me, please. I'm sick of lazing and fearfully keen. And I can't allow my Mother to be drownded by anyone but me. I'd be obliged to murder the other body, which would be awkward—for us both!"
"Miss Despard—there is no danger——" he muttered—impervious to humour; and—as if by chance—one of his hands half covered hers.
"Let go," she commanded, so low that no one else knew she had spoken; so sternly that Dyán's fingers unclosed as if they had touched fire.
"Now, don't fuss. Go and sit down," she added, in her lighter vein. "You've done your share. And you're jolly grateful to me, really. But too proud to own it!"
"Not too proud to obey you," he muttered.
She saw the words rather than heard them; and he turned away without daring to meet her eyes.