rag.' So they're on the _qui vive._ He'll count that one up
against me: but I'll manage to survive."
And Dyan, in the privacy of his heart, had felt distinctly relieved. Not
that he lacked the courage of his race; but, having seen the man for
years, as it were, through a magnifying lens, he could not, all in a
moment, see him for the thing he was:--dangerous as a snake, yet swift
as a snake to wriggle out of harm's way.
He had not been backward, however, in awakening his grandfather to
purdah manoeuvres. Strictly in private--he told his cousin--there had
been ungoverned storms of temper, ungoverned abuse of Roy, who was
suspected by 'the Inside' of knowing too much and having undue influence
with the old man. 'The Inside,' he gathered, had from early days been
jealous of the favourite daughter and all her belongings. Naturally, in
Dyan's opinion, his sister ought to marry; and the sooner the better.
Perhaps he had been unwise, after all, insisting on postponement. By now
she would have been settled in her lawful niche instead of making
trouble with this craze for hospital nursing and keeping outside caste.
Not surprising if she shrank from living at home, after all she had been
through. Better for them both, perhaps, to break frankly with orthodox
Hinduism and join the Brahma Samaj.
As Roy knew precisely how much--or rather, how little--Aruna liked
working in the wards, he suffered a pang at the pathos of her innocent
guile. And if Dyan had his own suspicions, he kept them to himself. He
also kept to himself the vitriolic outpouring which he had duly found
awaiting him at Jaipur. It contained too many lurid allusions to 'that
conceited, imperialistic half-caste cousin of yours'; and Roy might
resent the implied stigma as much as Dyan resented it for him. So he
tore up the effusion, intended for the eye of Roy, merely remarking that
it had enraged him. It was beneath contempt.
Roy would like to have seen it, all the same; for he knew himself
quicker than Dyan at reading between the lines. The beggar would not hit
back straight. But given the chance, he might try it on some other
way--witness the pistol-shot in the arcade; a side light--or a side
flash--on the pleasant sort of devil he was!
Back in the Jaipur Residency, in the garden that was 'almost England,'
back in his good familiar tweed coat and breeches, the whole Delhi
interlude seemed strangely theatrical and unreal; more like a vivid
dream than an exper
|