It was a minute or two before Roy looked up and nodded his acknowledgments.

"You're a magician, old chap. You play that thing a d.a.m.n sight too well."

He did not add that his friend's music had called up a vision of the Home drawing-room, clear in every detail; Lance at the piano--his last week-end from Sandhurst--playing the 'thing' by request; himself lounging on the hearthrug, his head against his mother's knee; the very feel of her silk skirt against his cheek, of her fingers on his hair....

Nor did he add that the vision had spurred his reluctant spirit to a resolve.

The more practical soul of Lance Desmond had already dropped back to earth, as a lark drops after pouring out its heart in the blue. In spite of concern for Roy, he was thinking again of his Sikhs.

"I suppose one can take it," he remarked thoughtfully, "that Vinx and Mayne and that good old Moslem johnny know what they're talking about?"

Roy smiled--having jumped at the connection. "I'm afraid," he said, "one can."

"You think big trouble is coming--organised trouble?"

"I do. That is, unless some 'strong silent man' has the pluck to put his foot down in time, and chance the consequences to himself. Thank G.o.d, we've another John Lawrence in the Punjab."

"And it's the Punjab that matters----"

"Especially a certain P.C. Regiment--eh?"

Lance was in arms at once:--that meant he had touched the spot. "No flies on the Regiment. Trust Paul. It's only--I get bothered about a Sikh here and there."

"Quite so. The blighters have taken particular pains with the Sikhs.

Realising that they'll need some fighting stuff. And Lah.o.r.e's a bad place. I expect they sneak off to meetings in the City."

"Devil a doubt of it. Mind you, I trust them implicitly. But, outside their own line, they're credulous as children--_you_ know."

"Rather. In Delhi, I had a fair sample of it."

Another pause. It suddenly occurred to Lance that his precious Sikhs were not supposed to be the topic of the evening. "You're quite fit again, Roy. And those blooming fools chucked you like a cast horse----"

he broke out in a spurt of vexation. "I wish to G.o.d you were back with your old Squadron."

And Roy said from his heart, "I wish to G.o.d I was."

"Paul misses you, though he never says much. The new lot from home are good chaps. Full of brains and theories. But no knowledge. Can't get at the men. You could still help unofficially in all sorts of ways.--Why not come along back with me? Haven't you been pottering round here long enough?"

Roy shook his head. "Thanks all the same, for the invite. Of course I'd love it. But--I've things to do. There's a novel taking shape--and other oddments. I've done precious little writing here. Too much entangled with human destinies. I _must_ bury myself somewhere and get a move on. April it is. I won't fail you."

Lance kicked an unoffending log. "Confound your old novel!"--A portentous silence. "See here, Roy, I don't want to badger you.

But--well--if I'm to go back in moderate peace of mind, I want--certain guarantees."

Roy lifted his eyes. Lance frankly encountered them; and there ensued one of those intimate pauses in which the unspeakable is said.

Roy looked away. "Aruna?" He let fall the word barely above his breath.

"Just that."

"You're frightened--both of you? Oh yes--I've seen----" He fell silent, staring into the fire. When he spoke again, it was in the same low, detached tone. "You two needn't worry. The guarantee you're after was given ... in July 1914 ... under the beeches ... at Home. _She_ foresaw--understood. But she couldn't foresee ... the harder tug--now she's gone. The ... a.s.sociation ... and all that."

"Is it--only that?"

"It's mostly that."

To Lance Desmond, very much a man, it seemed the queerest state of things; and he knew only a fragment of the truth.

"Look here, Roy," he urged again. "Wouldn't the Punjab really be best?

Aren't you plunging a bit too deep----? Does your father realise? Thea feels----"

"Yes. Thea feels, bless her! But there's a thing or two she doesn't _know_!" He lifted his head and spoke in an easier voice. "One queer thing--it may interest you. Those few weeks of living as an Indian among Indians--amazingly intensified all the other side of me. I never felt keener on the Sinclair heritage and all it stands for. I never felt keener on you two than all this time while I've been concentrating every faculty on--the other two. Sounds odd. But it's a fact."

"Good. And does--your cousin know ... about the guarantee?"

"N--no. That's still to come."

"_When----?_"

Roy straightly returned his friend's challenging gaze. "d.a.m.n you!" he said softly. Then, in a graver tone: "You're right. I've been shirking it. Seemed a shame to spoil Christmas. Remains--the New Year. I fixed it up--while you were playing that thing, to be exact."

"Did I--contribute?"

"You did--if that gives you any satisfaction!" He rose, stretched himself and yawned ostentatiously. "My G.o.d, I wish it was over."

Desmond said nothing. If Roy loved him more for one quality than another, it was for his admirable gift of silence.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: Dress of honour.]

CHAPTER XIV.

"Yet shall I bear in my heart this honour of the burden of pain--this gift of thine."--RABINDRANATH TAGORE.

It was the last day of the year; the last moon of the year, almost at her zenith. Of all the Christmas guests Lance alone remained; and Thea had promised him before leaving, a moonlight vision of Amber, the Sleeping Beauty of Rajasthan. The event had been delayed till now, partly because they waited on the moon; partly because they did not want it to be a promiscuous affair.

To Thea's lively imagination--and to Roy's no less--Amber was more than a mere city of ghosts and marble halls. It was a symbol of Rajput womanhood--strong and beautiful, withdrawn from the clamour of the market-place, given over to her dreams and her G.o.ds. For though kings have deserted Amber, the G.o.ds remain. There is still life in her temples and the blood of sacrifice on her altar stones. Therefore she must not be approached in the spirit of the tourist. And, emphatically, she must not be approached in a motor-car; at least so far as Thea's guests were concerned. Of course one knew she _was_ approached by irreverent cars; also by tourists--unspeakable ones, who made contemptible jokes about 'a slump in house property.' But for these vandalisms Thea Leigh was not responsible.

Her young ones, including Captain Martin, would ride; but, because of Aruna, she and Vincent must submit to the barouche. So transparent was the girl's pleasure at being included, that Thea's heart failed her--knowing what she knew.

Roy and Lance had ridden on ahead; out through the fortified gates into the open desert, strewn with tumbled fragments of the glory that was Rajasthan. There, where courtiers had intrigued and flattered, crows held conference. On the crumbling arch of a doorway, that opened into emptiness, a vulture brooded, heavy with feeding on those who had died for lack of food. Knee-deep in the Man Sagar Lake, grey cranes sought their meat from G.o.d; every tint and curve of them repeated in the quiet water. And there, beside a ruined shrine, two dead cactus bushes, with their stiff distorted limbs, made Roy think suddenly of two dead Germans he had come upon once--killed so swiftly that they still retained, in death, the ghastly semblance of life. Why the devil couldn't a man be rid of them? Dead Germans were not 'in the bond.'...

"Buck up, Lance," he said abruptly; for Desmond, who saw no ghosts, was keenly interested. "Let's quit this place of skulls and empty eye-sockets. Amber's dead; but not utterly decayed."

He knew. He had ridden out alone one morning, in the light of paling stars, to watch the dawn steal down through the valley and greet the sleeping city that would never wake again--half hoping to recapture the miracle of Chitor. But Amber did not enshrine the soul of his mother's race. And the dawn had proved merely a dawn. Moonlight, with its eerie enchantment, would be oven more beautiful and fitting; but the pleasure of antic.i.p.ation was shadowed by his resolve.

He had spoken of it only to Thea; asking her, when tea was over, to give him a chance:--and now he was heartily wishing he had chosen any other place and time than this....