“Man am I grown; a man’s work I must do.” 
                                   —­TENNYSON.

Tara was right.  The Boy-of-ten (Roy persistently ignored the half) was rather a large boy:  also rather lumpy.  He had little eyes and freckles and what Christine called a “turnip nose.”  He wore a very new school blazer and real cricket trousers, with a flannel shirt and school tie that gave Roy’s tussore shirt and soft brown bow almost a girlish air.  Something in his manner and the way he aired his school slang, made Roy—­who never shone with strangers—­feel “miles younger,” which did not help to put him at ease.

His name was Joe Bradley.  He had been in India till he was nearly eight; and he talked about India, as he talked about school, in a rather important voice, as befitted the only person present who knew anything of either.

Roy was quite convinced he knew nothing at all about Rajputana or Chitor or Prithvi Raj or the sacred peacocks of Jaipur.  But somehow he could not make himself talk about these things simply for “show off,” because a strange boy, with bad manners, was putting on airs.

Besides, he never much wanted to talk when he was eating, though he could not have explained why.  So he devoted his attention chiefly to a plate of chocolate cakes, leaving the Boy-of-ten conversationally in command of the field.

He was full of a recent cricket match, and his talk bristled with such unknown phrases as “square leg,” “cover point” and “caught out.”  But for some reason—­pure perversity perhaps—­they stirred in Roy no flicker of curiosity, like his father’s “flair for the obvious.”  He didn’t know what they meant—­and he didn’t care, which was not the least like Roy.  Tara, who owned big brothers, seemed to know all about it, or looked as if she did; and to show you didn’t understand what a girl understood, would be the last indignity.

When the cricket show-off was finished, Joe talked India and ragged Tara, in a big-brotherly way, ignored Christine, as if five and a half simply didn’t count.  That roused Roy; and by way of tacit rebuke, he bestowed such marked attention on his small sister, that Christine (who adored him, and was feeling miserably shy) sparkled like a dewdrop when the sun flashes out.

She was a tiny creature, exquisitely proportioned; fair, like her father, yet in essence a replica of her mother, with the same wing-like brows and dark limpid eyes.  Dimly jealous of Tara, she was the only one of the three who relished the presence of the intruder and wished strange boys oftener came to tea.

Millicent, the nursery-maid, presided.  She was tall and smiling and obviously a lady.  She watched and listened and said little during the meal.

Once, in the course of it, Lilamani came in and hovered round them, filling Roy’s tea-cup, spreading Christine’s honey—­extra thick.  Her Eastern birthright of service, her joy in waiting on those she loved, had survived ten years of English marriage, and would survive ten more.  It was as much an essential part of her as the rhythm of her pulses and the blood in her veins.