“Are you there?  It’s Roy,” he called softly.

A pause:—­then the door flew open and Dyan stood before him, in loose white garments; no turban; a farouche look in his eyes.

“My God—­Roy!  Crazy of you!  I never thought——­”

“Well, I got sick of waiting.  I suppose I can come in?” Roy’s impatience was the measure of his relief.

Dyan moved back a pace, and, as Roy stepped on to the roof, he carefully closed the door.

“Think—­if you had come three minutes earlier!  He only left me just now—­Chandranath.”

“And passed me in the archway,” added Roy with his touch of bravado.  “I’ve as much right to be in Delhi—­and to vary my costume—­as your mysteriously potent friend.  It’s a free country.”

“It is fast becoming—­not so free.”  Dyan lowered his voice, as if afraid he might be overheard.  “And you don’t consider the trouble it might make—­for me.”

“How about the trouble you’ve been making for me?  What’s wrong?”

Dyan passed a nervous hand across his eyes and forehead.  “Come in.  It’s getting cold out here,” he said, in a repressed voice.  Roy followed him across the roof top, with its low parapet and vault of darkening sky, up three steps, into an arcaded room, where a log fire burned in the open hearth.  Shabby, unrelated bits of furniture gave the place a comfortless air.  On a corner table strewn with leaflets and pamphlets ("Poisoned arrows, up to date!” thought Roy), a typewriter reared its hooded head.  The sight struck a shaft of pain through him.  Aruna’s Dyan—­son of kings and warriors—­turning his one skilful hand to such base uses!

“What’s wrong?” he repeated with emphasis.  “I want a straight answer, Dyan.  I’ve risked something to get it.”

Dyan sat down near a small table, and took his head between his hands.  “There is—­so much wrong,” he said, looking steadily up at Roy.  “I am feeling—­like a man who wakes too suddenly after much sleepwalking.”

“Since when?” asked Roy, keeping himself in hand.  “What’s jerked you awake?  D’you know?”

“There have been many jerks.  Seeing you; Aruna’s offering; this news of the War; and something ... you mentioned last time.”

“What was that ...  Tara?” Roy lunged straight to the middle of the wound.

Dyan started.  “But—­how——!  I never said....” he stammered, visibly shaken.

“It didn’t need saying.  Aruna told me—­the fact; and my own wits told me the rest.  You’re not honestly keen—­are you?—­to shorten the arm of the British Raj and plunge India into chaos?”

“No—­no.”  A very different Dyan, this, to the one who had poured out stock phrases like water only a week ago.

“Isn’t bitterness—­about Tara, at the back of it!  Face that straight.  And—­if it’s true, say so without false shame.”