The last words—­almost inaudible—­were a revelation to Roy; an illumining glimpse of the true self, that a man hides very carefully from his fellows; and shows—­at supreme moments only—­to ’a woman when he loves her.’

Shy of their mutual emotion, he laid a hand on his father’s arm.

“You can count on me, Dad,” he said in the same low tone.  “Who knows—­one day it might inspire the Rajputs to rebuild their Queen of Cities, in white marble, that she may rise again, immortal through the ages....”

When they stood up to leave the shrine their eyes met in a steadfast look; and there was the same thought behind it.  She had given them to each other in a new way; in a fashion all her own.

* * * * *

For that brief space, Roy had almost forgotten Tara.  Now the wonder of her flashed back on him like a dazzle of sunlight after the dim sanctity of cathedral aisles.

And down in the studio it was possible to discuss practical issues of his father’s inspiration—­or rather his mother’s; for they both felt it as such.

Roy would marry Tara in September; and in November they three would go out together.  There were bad days coming out there; but, as Roy had once said, every man and woman of goodwill—­British or Indian—­would count in the scale, were it only a grain here, a grain there.  The insignificance of the human unit—­a mere fragment of star-dust on sidereal shores—­is off-set by the incalculable significance of the individual in the history of man’s efforts to be more than man.  In that faith these two could not be found wanting; debtors as they were to the genius, devotion, and high courage of one fragile woman, who had lived little more than half her allotted span.

They at least would not give up hope of the lasting unity vital to both races, because political errors and poisonous influences and tragic events had roused a mutual spirit of bitterness difficult to quell....

Conceivably, it might touch the imagination of their India—­Rajputana (Roy was chary, now, of the all-embracing word), that an Englishman should so love an Indian woman as to immortalise her memory in a form peculiar to the East.  For a Christian Lilamani, neither temple, nor tomb, but the vision of a waste city rebuilded—­the city whose name was written on her heart.  In their uplifted moment, it seemed not quite unthinkable.

“And it’s India’s imagination we have most of us signally failed to touch—­if not done a good deal to quench,” said Roy, his eyes brooding on a bank of purple-grey cloud, his own imagination astir....

It was his turn now to catch a flitting inspiration on the wing.

Would it be utterly impossible——?  Could they spend a wander-year in Rajputana—­the cities, the desert, the Aravallis:  his father painting—­he writing?  The result—­a combined book, dedicated to her memory; an attempt to achieve something in the nature of interpretation—­his arrogant dream of Oxford days; a vindication of his young faith in the arts as the true medium of mutual understanding.  In any case, it would be a unique achievement.  And they would feel they had contributed their mite of goodwill, had followed ’the gleam.’...