Striding across the field, in the glimmer of a moon just beginning to take colour, he alternately raged at her light rebuff, and applauded her maidenly hesitation. As a Hindu and a man of breeding, his natural instinct had been to approach her parents; but he knew enough of modern youth, by now, to realise that English parents were a side issue in these little affairs. For himself, the primitive lover flamed in him. He wanted to kneel and worship her. In the same breath, he wanted simply to possess her, would she or no....
And in saner moods, uncertainty racked him. What did they amount to, her smiles and flashes of sympathy, her kind, cousinly ways? What did Roy's cousinly kindness amount to, with Arúna? If in India they suffered from too much restriction, it dawned on him that in England trouble might arise from too much freedom. Always, by some cause, there would be suffering. The gods would see to it. But not through loss of her—he mutely implored them. Any way but that!
Everything hung on the walk home. Those two must have finished their sparring match by now....
They had. Roy was on the bank, helping Arúna pack the basket; and Cuthbert in possession of Tara—not for long.
He was called upon to punt back; and at the boat-house, where a taxi removed the elders and the picnic impedimenta, he essayed a futile manœuvre to recapture Tara and saddle Dyán with the solid Emily. Failing, he consoled himself by keeping in touch with Arúna and Roy.
Dyán patently delayed starting, patently lagged behind. Unskilled and desperately in earnest, he could not lead up to his moment. He was laboriously framing the essential words when Tara scattered them with a light remark, rallying him on his snail's pace.
"You would go for that stroll; and you strolled so violently——!"
"Because my heart in me was raging—aching, violently!" he blurted out with such unexpected vehemence, that she started and stepped back a pace.
"Of course I knew—there must be difficulties—so I have been waiting and hoping ..." An idiotic catch in his throat brought a sudden hot wave of self-consciousness. He flung out both hands. "Tara——!"
Instinctively, she drew her own out of reach. A ghost of a shiver ran through her. "No—no. I don't ... I never have.... If I've misled you, I'm ever so sorry."