Thea had insisted; so they came--clothed chiefly in shyness and
gratitude, which made them shyer than ever.

Roy, still new to Anglo-India, was amazed at the way these haphazard
humans were thawed into a passing intimacy by the sunshine of Thea's
personality. For himself, it was the nearest approach to the real thing
that he had known since that dear and dreamlike Christmas of 1916. It
warmed his heart, and renewed the well-spring of careless happiness that
had gone from him utterly since the blow fell; gone, so he believed,
for ever.

Something of this she divined--and was glad. Yet her exigent heart was
not altogether at ease. His reaction to Lance, though unmistakable, fell
short of her confident expectation. He was still squandering far too
much time on the other two. Sometimes she felt almost angry with him:
jealous--for Lance. She knew how deeply he cared underneath; because she
too was a Desmond. And Desmonds could not care by halves.

This morning, for instance, the wretch was out riding with Dyan; and
there was Lance, alone in the drawing-room strumming the accompaniments
of things they would play to-night: just a wandering succession of
chords in a minor key; but he had his father's gift of touch, that no
training can impart, and the same trick of playing pensively to himself,
almost as if he were thinking aloud. It was five years since she had
seen her father; and those pensive chords brought sudden tears to her
eyes.

What did Lance mean by it--mooning about the piano like that? Had he
fallen in love? That was one of the few questions she did not dare ask
him. But here was her chance to 'put in a word' about Roy.

So she strolled into the drawing-room and leaned over the grand piano.
His smile acknowledged her presence, and his pensive chords went
wandering softly away into the bass.

"Idiot--what _are_ you doing?" she asked briskly, because the music was
creeping down her spine. "Talking to yourself?"

"More or less."

"Well--give over. I'm here. And it's a bad habit."

He shook his head, and went wandering on. "In this form I find it
soothing and companionable."

"Well, you oughtn't to be needing either at Christmas time under _my_
roof, with Roy here and all--if he'd only behave. Sometimes I want to
shake him----"

"Why--what's the matter with Roy?"--That innocent query checked her rush
of protest in mid career. Had he not even noticed? Men were the
queerest, dearest things!----"He looks awf