red like a
soap-bubble at the touch of a careless hand.

Lilamani rose, gentle and dignified. "Thank you, Roger. Tell Sir Nevil I
am coming."

Roy suppressed a groan. The mere mention of Aunt Jane made one feel
vaguely guilty. To his nimble fancy it was almost as if her very person
had invaded their sanctuary, in her neat hard coat and skirt and her
neat hard summer hat with its one fierce wing, that, disdaining the
tenderness of curves, seemed to stab the air, as her eyes so often
seemed to stab Roy's hyper-sensitive brain.

"Oh dear!" he sighed. "Will they stop for lunch?"

"I expect so."

He wrinkled his nose in a wicked grimace.

"Bad boy!" said Lilamani's lips, but her eyes said other things. He
knew, and she knew that he knew how, in her heart, she shared his innate
antagonism. Was it not of her own bestowing--a heritage of certain
memories--ineffaceable, unforgiveable--during her early days of
marriage? But in spite of that mutual knowledge, Roy was never allowed
to speak disrespectfully of his formidable aunt.

"You can stay out and play till half-past twelve, not one minute later,"
she said--and left them to their own delectable devices.

Roy had been promoted to a silver watch on his eighth birthday, so he
could be relied on; and he still enjoyed a private sense of importance
when the fact was recognised.

Left alone they had only to pick up the threads of their game; a sort of
interminable serial story, in which they lived and moved and had their
being. But first Tara--in her own person--had a piece of news to impart.
Hunching up her knees, she tilted back her head till it touched the
satin-grey hole of the tree and all her hair lay shimmering against it
like a stream of pale sunshine.

"What do you think?" she nodded at Roy with her elfin smile. "We've got
a Boy-on-a-visit and his mother, from India. They came last night. He's
rather a large boy."

"Is he nine?" Roy asked, standing up very straight and slim, a defensive
gleam in his eye.

"He's ten and a half. And he looks bigger'n that. He goes to school. And
he's been quite a lot in India."

"Not my India."

"I don't know. He called it 'Mballa. That letter I brought from Mummy
was asking if she could bring them for tea."

"Well, I don't want him for tea. I don't like your Boy-on-a-visit. I'll
tell Mummy."

"Oh, Roy--you mustn't." She made reproachful eyes at him. "Coz then _I_
couldn't come. And he's quite nice--only rather lumpy. And