egistered a new
ambition--to become Desmond's friend.

Presently, as if aware of his thought, Desmond spoke.

"I say, Sinclair, how old are you? You seem less of a kid than most of
the new lot."

"I'm ten and a half," said Roy, wishing it was eleven.

"Bit late for starting. I'm twelve. Going on to Marlborough next year."

Roy felt crushed. In a year he would be gone! Still--there were three
more terms: and _he_ would go on to Marlborough too. He would insist.

"Does Scab Ma. bother you much?" Desmond asked with a friendly twinkle.

"Now and then--nothing to fuss about."

Roy's nonchalance, though plucky, was not quite convincing.

"Righto! I'll head him off. He isn't keen to knock up against me." A
pause. "How about sitting down my way at meals? You don't look awfully
gay at your end."

"I'm not. It would be ripping."

"Good. We'll hang together, eh? Because of India; because we both
belong--in a different way. And we'll stick up for that miserable little
devil Chandranath."

"Yes--we will." (The glory of that 'we.') "All the same,--I don't much
like the look of him"

"No more don't I. He's the wrong 'jat.' He won't stay long--you'll see.
But still--he shan't be bullied by Scabs, because he's not the same
colour outside. You see that sort of thing in India too. My father's
fearfully down on it, because it makes more bad blood than anything;
I've heard him say that it's just the blighters who buck about the
superior race who do all the damage with their inferior manners. Rather
neat--eh?"

Roy glowed. "Your father must be a splendid sort. Is he a soldier?"

"Rath_er_! He's a V.C. He got it saving a Jemadar--a Native Officer."

Roy caught his breath.

"I would awfully like to hear how----"

Desmond told him how....

It was a wonderful walk. By the end of it Roy no longer felt a lonely
atom in a strange world. He had found something better than his
Sanctuary--he had found a friend.

Looking back, long afterwards, he recognised that Sunday as the
turning-point....

Later in the evening he poured it all out to his mother in four
closely-written sheets.

But not a word about herself, or Desmond's friendly warning, which
still puzzled him. He worried over it a little before he fell asleep. It
was the very first hint--given, in all friendliness--that the mere fact
of having an Indian mother might go against you, in some people's eyes.
Not the right ones, of course; but still--in the nature of thing