-chairs?" he remarked tentatively, very much
engaged with a cigarette.

They removed their coffee-cups, and sipped once or twice in silence.
"I'm waiting," said Broome, encouragement in his tone.

But Roy still hesitated. "You see----" he temporised, "I'm so fearfully
keen, I feel shy of gassing about it. Might seem to you mere soppy
sentiment."

Broome's sailor eyes twinkled. "You pay me the compliment, my son, of
treating me as if I were a fellow-undergrad! It's only the 'teens and
the twenties of this very new century that are so mortally afraid of
sentiment--the main factor in human happiness. If you had _not_ a strong
sentiment for India, you would be unworthy of your mother. You want to
go out there--is that the rub?"

"Yes. With Dyan."

"In what capacity?"

"A lover and a learner. Also--by way of--a budding author. I was hoping
you might back me up with a few commissions for my preliminary stuff."

"You selected your godfather with unerring foresight! And preliminaries
over--a book, or books, would be the end in view?"

"Yes--and other things. Whatever one can do--in a small way--to inspire
a friendlier feeling all round; a clearer conviction that the destinies
of England and India are humanly bound up together. I'm sure those
cursed politics are responsible for most of the friction. It's art and
literature, the emotional and spiritual forces that draw men together,
isn't it, Jeffers? _You_ know that----"

He leaned forward, warming to his subject; the false start forgotten;
shyness dispelled....

And, once started, none was more skilful than Broome in luring him on to
fuller, unconscious self-revealing. He knew very well that, on this
topic, and on many others, Roy could enlarge more freely to him than to
his father. Youth is made that way. In his opinion, it was all to the
good that Roy should aspire to use his double heritage, for the
legitimate and noble purpose of interpreting--as far as might be--East
to West, and West to East: not least, because he would probably learn a
good deal more than he was qualified to teach. It was in the process of
qualifying himself, by closer acquaintance with India, that the lurking
danger reared its head. But some outlet there must be for the Eastern
spirit in him; and his early efforts pointed clearly to literary
expression, if Broome knew anything of the creative gift. Himself a
devotee, he agreed with Lafcadio Hearne that 'a man may do quite as
great a service