“In plain English, a spoilt boy—­as you once told me—­wrapped up in myself.”

“No, you weren’t.  I won’t have it!” she contradicted him in her old imperious way.  “You were wrapped up in all kinds of wonderful things.  So you just ... didn’t see me.  You looked clean over my head.  Of course it often made me unhappy.  But—­it made me love you more.  That’s the way we women are.  It’s not the men who run after us; it’s the other kind...!  I expect you looked clean over poor Aruna’s head.  And if I asked her, privately, she’d confess that was partly why ... and the other girl too ... if ...”

“Darling—­don’t!” he pleaded.  “I’m ashamed, beyond words.  I’ll tell you every atom of it truthfully ... my Tara.  But this is our moment.  I want more—­about you.—­Sit.  It’s full early.  Then we’ll go in (of course you’re coming to breakfast) and give Dad the surprise of his life....  Bother your old hat!  It gets in the way.  And I want to see your hair.”

With a shyness new to him—­and to Tara, poignantly dear—­he drew out her pins; discarded the offending hat, and took her head between his hands, lightly caressing the thick coils that shaded from true gold to warm delicate tones of brown.

Then he set her on the mossy seat near the trunk; and flung himself down before her in the old way, propped on his elbows—­rapt, lost in love; divinely without self-consciousness.

“I’m not looking over your head now,” he said, his eyes deep in hers:—­deep and deeper, till the wild-rose flush invaded the delicate hollows of her temples; and leaning forward she laid a hand across those too eloquent eyes.

“Don’t blind me altogether—­darling.  When people have been shut away from the sun a long time——­”

“But, Tara—­why were you...?” He removed the hand and kept hold of it.  “I begged you to come.  I wanted you.  Why did you...?”

She shook her head, smiling half wistfully.  “That’s a bit of my old Roy!  But you’re man enough to know—­now, without telling.  And I was woman enough to know—­then.  At least, by instinct, I knew....”

“Then it wasn’t because ... because—­I’m half ...  Rajput?”

“Roy!” But for all her surprise and reproach, intuition told him the idea was not altogether new to her.  “What made you think—­of that?”

“Well—­because it partly ... broke things off—­out there.  That startled me.  And when Dad’s miracle of a picture woke me up with a vengeance ... it terrified me.  I began wondering....  Beloved, are you quite sure about Aunt Helen ...  Sir James...?”