Roy quietly took possession of the hand and pressed it to his lips.

“How do you suppose I feel, seeing you like that!” Words and act dispelled her foolish fears.  “Did you sleep?  Does it hurt much?”

“Only if I forget and try to move.  But what matter?  Every time it hurts, I feel proud because that feeble arm was able to push you out of the way.”

“You’ve every right to feel proud.  You nearly knocked me over!”

A mischievous smile crept into her eyes.  “I am afraid ...  I was very rude!”

“That’s one way of putting it!” His grave tenderness warmed her like sunshine.  He leaned nearer; his hand grasped the arm of her long chair.  “You were a very wonderful Aruna last night.  And—­you are going to be more wonderful still.  Working with Dyan, you are going to help make my dream come true—­of India finding herself again by her own genius, along her own lines——­”

He had struck the right note.  Her face lit up as he had hoped to see it.  “Oh, Roy—­can I really——?  Will Dyan help?  Will he let me——­”

“Of course he will.  And I’ll be helping too—­in my own fashion.  We’ll never lose touch, Aruna; though India’s your destiny and England’s mine.  Never say again you have no true country.  Like me, you have two countries—­one very dear; one supreme.  I’m afraid there are terrible days coming out here.  And in those days every one of you who honestly loves England—­every one of us who honestly loves India—­will count in the scale ...”

He paused; and she drew a deep breath.  “Oh—­how you see things!  It is you who are wonderful, Roy.  I can think and feel the big things in my heart.  But for doing them—­I am, after all, only a woman....”

“An Indian woman,” he emphasised, his eyes on hers.  “I know—­and you know—­what that means.  You have not yet bartered away your magical influence for a mess of pottage.  Because of one Indian woman—­supreme for me; and now ... because of another, they all have a special claim on my heart.  If India has not gone too far down the wrong road, it is by the true Swadeshi spirit of her women she may yet be saved. They, at any rate, don’t reckon progress by counting factory chimneys or seats on councils.  And every seed—­good or bad—­is sown first in the home.  Get at the women, Aruna—­the home ones—­and tell them that.  It’s not only my dream; it was—­my mother’s.  You don’t know how she loved and believed in you all.  I think she never quite understood the other kind.  The longer she lived among them, the more she craved for all of you to remain true women—­in the full sense, not the narrow one——­”

He had never yet spoken so frankly and freely of that dear lost mother; and Aruna knew it for the highest compliment he could pay her.  Truly his generous heart was giving her all that his jealous household gods would permit....

Thea—­stepping softly through the inner room—­caught a sentence or two; caught a glimpse of Roy’s finely-cut profile; of Aruna’s eyes intent on his face; and she smiled very tenderly to herself.  It was so exactly like Roy; and such constancy of devotion went straight to her mother-heart.  So too—­with a sharper pang—­did the love hunger in Aruna’s eyes.