trying to
model with one hand; but you wouldn't believe ... the swiftness ... the
sureness ... as if my fingers knew...."

Roy could believe. Occasionally his own fingers behaved so.

"When it was done, I put it in here," his father went on, masking, with
studied quietness, his elation at the effect on Roy. "I've shown it to
no one--not even Aunt Helen. I couldn't write of it. I felt it would
sound crazy----"

"Not to me," said Roy.

"Well, I couldn't tell that. And I've been waiting--for _you_."

"Since--when?"

"Since the third of March, this year."

Roy drew an audible breath. It was the anniversary of her passing. "All
that time! How could you----? Why didn't you----?"

"Well--_you_ know. You were obviously submerged--your novel, Udaipur,
Lance.... You wouldn't have forgone all that ... if I know you, for a
mere father. But you're here, at last, thank God. And--I want to know.
You've seen Chitor, as it is to-day...."

"I've seen more than that," said Roy. "I can tell you, now. I
couldn't--before. Let's sit."

And sitting there, on her couch, in her House of Gods, he told the story
of his moonlit ride and its culmination; told it in low tones, in swift
vivid phrases that came of themselves....

Throughout the telling--and for many minutes afterwards--his father sat
motionless; his head on his hand, half shielding his face from view....

"I've only spoken of it to Grandfather," Roy said at last. "And with all
my heart, I wish he could see ... that."

Sir Nevil looked up now, and the subdued exaltation in his eyes was
wholly new to Roy.

"_I've_ gone a good way beyond wishing," he said. "But again--I was
waiting for you. I want to go out there, Roy--with you two, when you're
married--and see it all for myself. With care, one could take the thing
along, to verify and improve it on the spot. Then--what do you say?--you
and I might achieve a larger reproduction--for Grandfather: a gift to
Rajputana--my source of inspiration; a tribute ... to her memory, who
still lights our lives ... with the inextinguishable lamp of her
spirit----"

The last words--almost inaudible--were a revelation to Roy; an
illumining glimpse of the true self, that a man hides very carefully
from his fellows; and shows--at supreme moments only--to 'a woman when
he loves her.'

Shy of their mutual emotion, he laid a hand on his father's arm.

"You can count on me, Dad," he said in the same low tone. "Who
knows--one day it might