her
memory; an attempt to achieve something in the nature of
interpretation--his arrogant dream of Oxford days; a vindication of his
young faith in the arts as the true medium of mutual understanding. In
any case, it would be a unique achievement. And they would feel they had
contributed their mite of goodwill, had followed 'the gleam.'...

"Besides--out there, other chances might crop up. Thea, Grandfather,
Dyan.... And Tara would be in in it all, heart and soul," he
concluded--remembering, with a twinge, a certain talk with Rose. "And it
would do _you_ all the good on earth--which isn't the least of its
virtues, in my eyes!"

The look on his father's face was reward enough--for the moment.

"Well done, Roy," said Sir Nevil very quietly. "That year in Rajputana
shall be my wedding present--to you two----"

* * * * *

Later on the 'inspired plan' was expounded to Tara--with amplifications.
She had merely run home--escorted, of course, through the perils of the
wood--to impart her great news and bring her mother back to lunch, which
Roy persistently called 'tiffin.' Food disposed of, they stepped
straight out of the house into a world of their own--the world of their
'Game-without-an-End'; the rose garden, the wood, the regal splendours
of the moor, gleaming and glooming under shadows of drifting cloud: on
and on, in a golden haze of content, talking, endlessly talking....

The reserve and infrequency of their letters had left whole tracts,
outer and inner, unexplored. Here, thought Roy--in his mother's
beautiful phrase--was 'the comrade of body and spirit' that his
subconsciousness had been seeking all along: while he looked over the
heads of one and another, lured by the far, yet emotionally susceptible
to the near. Once--unbidden--the thought intruded: "How different! How
unutterably different!"

Reading aloud to Tara would seem pure waste of her; except when it came
to the novel, of which he had told her next to nothing, so far....

And Tara carried her happiness proudly, like a banner. The deliciousness
of being loved; the intoxication of it, after the last spark of hope had
been quenched by that excruciating engagement! Her volcanic heart held a
capacity for happiness as tremendous as her capacity for daring and
suffering. But the first had so long eluded her, that now she dared
scarcely let herself go.

She listened half incredulous, wholly entranced, while Roy drew rapid