With a playful movement—­pure Eastern—­she drew it half over her face.

“Oh, Nevil—­you wicked!  I never guessed——­”

“That was the beauty of it.  I make my salaams to Roy!  What’s he been up to that it takes four sheets to confess?”

“Not confessing.  Telling a tale.  It will surprise you.”

“Let’s have a look.”

She gave him the letter; and while he read it, she intently watched his face.  “The boy’ll write—­I shouldn’t wonder,” was his verdict, handing back her treasure, with an odd half-smile in his eyes.

“And you were hoping—­he would paint?” she said, answering his thought.

“Yes, but—­scarcely expecting.  Sons are a perverse generation.  I’m glad he’s tumbled on his feet and found a pal.”

“Yes.  It is good.”

“We’ll invite young Desmond here and inspect him, eh?”

“Yes—­we will.”

He was silent a moment, considering her profile—­humanly, not artistically.  “Jealous, is she?  The hundredth part of a fraction?”

“Just so much!” she admitted in her small voice.  “But underneath—­I am glad.  A fine fellow.  We will ask him—­later.”

The projected invitation proved superfluous.  Roy’s next letter informed them that after Christmas Desmond was coming for ten whole days.  He had promised.

He kept his promise.  After Christmas he came and saw—­and conquered.  At first they were all inclined to be secretly critical of the new element that looked as if it had come to stay.  For Roy’s discreetly repressed admiration was clear as print to those who could read him like an open page.  And, on the whole, it was not surprising, as they were gradually persuaded to admit.  There was more in Lance Desmond than mere grace and good looks, manliness and a ready humour.  In him two remarkable personalities were blended with a peculiarly happy result.

They discovered, incidentally, his wonderful gift of music.  “Got it off my mother,” was his modest disclaimer.  “She and my sister are simply top-hole.  We do lots of it together.”

His intelligent delight in pictures and books commended him to Nevil; but, at twelve and a half, skating, tramping, and hockey matches held the field.  Sometimes—­when it was skating—­Tara and Chris went with them.  But they made it clear, quite unaggressively, that the real point was to go alone.

Day after day, from her window, Lilamani watched them go, across the radiant sweep of snow-covered lawn; and, for the first time, where Roy was concerned, she knew the prick of jealousy,—­a foretaste of the day when her love would no longer fill his life.  Ashamed of her own weakness, she kept it hid—­or fancied she did so; but the little stabbing ache persisted, in spite of shame and stoic resolves.

Tara and Christine also knew the horrid pang; but they knew neither shame not stoic resolves.  Roy mustn’t suspect, of course; but they told each other, in strictest confidence, that they hated Desmond; firmly believing they spoke the truth.  So it was particularly vexatious to find that the moment he favoured them with the most casual attention, they were at his feet.