ght no more of
the matter.

Their first good week of polo and riding and generally fooling round
together had quickened his old allegiance to Lance, his newer allegiance
to the brotherhood of action. He possessed no more enviable talent than
his many-sided zest for life.

Lance himself seemed in an unusually social mood. So of course Roy must
submit to being bowled round in the new dog-cart and introduced to
special friends, in cantonments and Lahore, including the Deputy
Commissioner's wife and good-looking eldest daughter; the best dancer in
the station and an extra special friend, he gathered from Lance's best
offhand manner.

Roy found her more than good-looking; beautiful, almost, with her
twofold grace of carriage and feature and her low-toned harmony of
colouring:--ivory-white skin, ash-blond hair and hazel eyes, clear as a
Highland river; the pupils abnormally large, the short thick lashes very
black, like a smudge round her lids. She was tall, in fine, and carried
her beauty like a brimming chalice; very completely mistress of herself;
and very completely detached from her florid, effusive, worldly-wise
mother. Unquestionably, a young woman to be reckoned with.

But Roy did not feel disposed, just then, to reckon seriously with any
young woman, however alluring. The memory of Aruna--the exquisite
remoteness from everyday life of their whole relation--did not easily
fade. And the creatures of his brain were still clamant, in spite of
broken threads and drastic change of surroundings. Lance had presented
him with a spacious writing-table; and most days he would stick to it
for hours, sooner than drive out in pursuit of tennis or afternoon
dancing in Lahore.

He was sitting at it now; flinging down a dramatic episode, roughly,
rapidly, as it came. The polished surface was strewn with an untidy
array of papers; the only ornaments a bit of old brass-work and two
ivory elephants; a photograph of his father and a large one of his
mother taken from the portrait at Jaipur. The table was set almost at
right angles to his open door, and the chick rolled up. He had a
weakness for being able to 'see out,' if it was only the corner of a
barren 'compound' and a few dusty oleanders. He had forgotten the
others; forgotten the time. All he asked, while the spate lasted, was to
be left alone....

He almost jumped when the latch clicked behind him and Lance strolled
in, faultlessly attired in the latest suit from home; a g