h the temple doors a
rainbow-coloured stream of worshippers; while the dust-laden air
vibrated with jangle of metal bells, wail of conches and raucous clamour
of crows. Within doors, the rattle of dice rivalled the jangle of bells.
Young or old, none failed to consult those mysterious arbiters on this
auspicious day. Houses, shops, and balconies had been swept and
plastered with fresh cow dung, in honour of Vishnu's bride; and gayest
among festal shop-fronts was the dazzling array of toys. For the Feast
of Lights is also a feast of toys in bewildering variety; in sugar, in
paper, in burnt clay; tinselled, or gorgeously painted with colours such
as never were on ox or elephant, fish or bird.

What matter? To the uncritical Eastern eye, colour is all.

And, as the day wore on, colour, and yet more colour, was spilled abroad
in the wide main streets that are an arresting feature of Jaipur. Men,
women, and children, in gala turbans and gala draperies, laughing and
talking at full pitch of their lungs; gala elephants sheathed in cloth
of gold, their trunks and foreheads patterned in divers colours; scarlet
outriders clearing a pathway through the maze of turbans that bobbed to
and fro like a bed of parrot-tulips in a wind. Crimson, agate, and
apricot, copper and flame colour, greens and yellows; every conceivable
harmony and discord; nothing to rival it anywhere, Sir Lakshman told
Roy; save perhaps in Gwalior or Mandalay.

Roy had spent most of the morning in the city, lunching with his
grandfather and imbibing large draughts of colour from an airy minaret
on the roof top. Then home to the Residency for tea, only to insist on
carrying them all back in the car--Thea, Aruna, Flossie, and the
children, who must have their share of strange sweets and toys, if only
'for luck,' the watchword of Dewali.

As for Aruna--to-day everything in the world seemed to hang on the frail
thread of those two words. And what of to-night...?

All had been arranged in conjunction with Roy. His insistence on the
cousinly privilege of protecting her had arisen from a private
confession that she shrank from joining the orthodox group of maidens
who would go forth at sundown, to try their fate. She was other than
they were; out of purdah; out of caste; a being apart. And for most of
them it was little more than a 'game of play.' For her--but that she
kept to herself--this symbolical act of faith, this childish appeal for
a sign, was a matter of l