her women she may yet be saved. _They_, at
any rate, don't reckon progress by counting factory chimneys or seats on
councils. And every seed--good or bad--is sown first in the home. Get at
the women, Aruna--the home ones--and tell them that. It's not only _my_
dream; it was--my mother's. You don't know how she loved and believed in
you all. I think she never _quite_ understood the other kind. The longer
she lived among them, the more she craved for all of you to remain true
women--in the full sense, not the narrow one----"

He had never yet spoken so frankly and freely of that dear lost mother;
and Aruna knew it for the highest compliment he could pay her. Truly his
generous heart was giving her all that his jealous household gods would
permit....

Thea--stepping softly through the inner room--caught a sentence or two;
caught a glimpse of Roy's finely-cut profile; of Aruna's eyes intent on
his face; and she smiled very tenderly to herself. It was so exactly
like Roy; and such constancy of devotion went straight to her
mother-heart. So too--with a sharper pang--did the love hunger in
Aruna's eyes.

The puzzle of these increasing race complications----! The tragedy and
the pity of it...!

* * * * *

Lance travelled North that night with a mind at ease. Roy had assured
him that the moment his ankle permitted he would leave Jaipur and 'give
the bee in his bonnet an airing' elsewhere. That assurance proved easier
to give than to act upon, when the moment came. The Jaipur Residency had
come to seem almost like home. And the magnet of home drew all that was
Eastern in Roy. It was the British blood in his veins that drove him
afield. Though India was his objective, England was the impelling force.
His true home seemed hundreds of miles away, in more senses than one.
His union with Rajputana--set with the seal of that sacred and beautiful
experience at Chitor--seemed, in his present mood, the more vital of the
two.

And there was Lance up in the Punjab--a magnet as strong as any, when
the masculine element prevailed. Yet again, some inner irresistible
impulse obliged him to break away from them all. It was one of those
inevitable moments when the dual forces within pulled two ways; when he
felt envious exceedingly of Lance Desmond's sane and single-minded
attitude towards men and things. One couldn't picture Lance a prey to
the ignominious sensation that half of him wanted to go one way and