inspire the Rajputs to rebuild their Queen of
Cities, in white marble, that she may rise again, immortal through the
ages...."

When they stood up to leave the shrine their eyes met in a steadfast
look; and there was the same thought behind it. She had given them to
each other in a new way; in a fashion all her own.

* * * * *

For that brief space, Roy had almost forgotten Tara. Now the wonder of
her flashed back on him like a dazzle of sunlight after the dim sanctity
of cathedral aisles.

And down in the studio it was possible to discuss practical issues of
his father's inspiration--or rather his mother's; for they both felt it
as such.

Roy would marry Tara in September; and in November they three would go
out together. There were bad days coming out there; but, as Roy had once
said, every man and woman of goodwill--British or Indian--would count in
the scale, were it only a grain here, a grain there. The insignificance
of the human unit--a mere fragment of star-dust on sidereal shores--is
off-set by the incalculable significance of the individual in the
history of man's efforts to be more than man. In that faith these two
could not be found wanting; debtors as they were to the genius,
devotion, and high courage of one fragile woman, who had lived little
more than half her allotted span.

They at least would not give up hope of the lasting unity vital to both
races, because political errors and poisonous influences and tragic
events had roused a mutual spirit of bitterness difficult to quell....

Conceivably, it _might_ touch the imagination of their India--Rajputana
(Roy was chary, now, of the all-embracing word), that an Englishman
should so love an Indian woman as to immortalise her memory in a form
peculiar to the East. For a Christian Lilamani, neither temple, nor
tomb, but the vision of a waste city rebuilded--the city whose name was
written on her heart. In their uplifted moment, it seemed not quite
unthinkable.

"And it's India's imagination we have most of us signally failed to
touch--if not done a good deal to quench," said Roy, his eyes brooding
on a bank of purple-grey cloud, his own imagination astir....

It was his turn now to catch a flitting inspiration on the wing.

Would it be utterly impossible----? Could they spend a wander-year in
Rajputana--the cities, the desert, the Aravallis: his father
painting--he writing? The result--a combined book, dedicated to