The comparison jerked him.  The two experiences, like the two women, had almost nothing in common.  The charm of Aruna—­with its Eastern mingling of the sensuous and spiritual—­was a charm he intimately understood.  It combined a touch of the earth with a rarefied touch of the stars.  In Rose Arden, so far, he had discovered no touch of the stars.  She suggested, rather, a day in early summer, when warmth and fragrance and colour permeate soul and body; keeping them delectably in thrall; wooing the brain from irksome queries—­why, whence, whither?

By now, the sheer fascination of her had entered in and saturated his being to a degree that he vaguely resented.  Always one face, one voice, intruding on him unsought.  No respite from thought of her, from desire of her; the exquisite intolerable ache, at times, when she was present with him; the still more intolerable ache when she was not.

The fluidity of his own dual nature, and recoil from the Aruna temptation, inclined him peculiarly to idealise the clear-eyed, self-poised Western qualities so diversely personified in Lance and this compelling girl.  Yet emphatically he did not love her.  He knew the great reality too well to delude himself on that score.  Were these the authentic signs of falling ‘in love’?  If so—­in spite of rapturous moments—­it was a confoundedly uncomfortable state of being....

Where was she leading him—­this beautiful, distracting girl, who said so little, yet whose smiles and silences implied so much?  There was no forwardness or free-and-easiness about her; yet instinctively he recognised her as the active agent in the whole affair.  Twice, lately, he had resolved not to go near her again; and both times he had failed ignominiously—­he who prided himself on control of unruly emotions...!

Had Lance, he wondered, made the same resolve and managed to keep it—­being Lance?  Or was the Gymkhana momentarily the stronger magnet of the two?  He and Paul, with a Major in the Monmouths, were chief organisers; and much practice was afoot at tent-pegging, bare-back horsemanship, and the like.  For a week Lance had scarcely been into Lahore.  When Roy pressed him, he said it was getting too hot for afternoon dancing.  But as he still affected far more violent forms of exercise, that excuse was not particularly convincing.

By way of retort, he had rallied Roy on overdoing the tame-cat touch and neglecting the important novel.  And Roy—­wincing at the truth of that friendly flick—­had replied no less truthfully:  “Well, if it hangs fire, old chap, you’re the sinner. You dug me out of Paradise by twitting me with becoming an appendage to a pencil!  Another month at Udaipur would have nearly pulled me through it—­in the rough, at least.”

It was lightly spoken; but Lance had set his lips in a fashion Roy knew well; and said no more.