ully fit. Better all round.
He's pulling up. _You_ never saw him--you don't realise----"

"But, my dear boy, do _you_ realise that he's getting rather badly
bitten with all this--Indian problems and Indian cousins----"

Lance nodded. "I've been afraid of that. But one can't say much."

"I can't. I was counting on you as the God-given antidote. And there he
is, still fooling round with Dyan, when _you've_ come all this way ...
It makes me wild. It isn't _fair_----"

Her genuine distress moved Lance to cease strumming and bestow a
friendly pat on her hand. "Don't be giving yourself headaches and
heartaches over Roy and me, darlint. We're going strong, thanks very
much! It would take an earthquake to throw us out of step. If he chose
to chuck his boots at me, I wouldn't trouble--except to return the trees
if they were handy! Strikes me women don't yet begin to understand the
noble art of friendship----"

"_Which_ is a libel--but let that pass! Besides--hasn't it struck you?
Aruna----"

"My God!" His hands dropped with a crash on the keyboard. Then, in a low
swift rush: "Thea, you don't _mean_ it--you're pulling my leg."

"Bible-oath I'm not. It's too safely tucked under the piano!"

"My God!" he repeated softly, ignoring her incurable frivolity. "Has he
_said_ anything?"

"No. But it's plain they're both smitten more or less."

"Smitten be damned."

"Lance! I won't have Aruna insulted. Let me tell you she's charming and
cultivated; much better company than Floss. And I love her like a
daughter----"

"Would you have her marry _Roy_?" he flung out wrathfully.

"Of course not. But still----"

"_Me_--perhaps?" he queried with such fine scorn that she burst out
laughing.

"You priceless gem! You are _the_ unadulterated Anglo-Indian!"

"Well--what _else_ would I be? What else are you, by the same token?"

"Not adulterated," she denied stoutly. "Perhaps a wee bit less
'prejudiced.' The awful result, I suppose, of failing to keep myself
scrupulously detached from my surroundings. Besides, you couldn't be
married twenty years to that Vinx and not widen out a bit. Of course I'm
quite aware that widening out has its insidious dangers and limitation
its heroic virtues--Hush! Don't fly into a rage. _You're_ not limited,
old boy. You loved--Lady Sinclair."

"I adored her," Lance said very low; and his fingers strayed over the
keys again. "_But_--she was an accomplished fact. And--she was one in
many thousands. She