But that was their own private affair.  Whether they resented, or whether they adored, the boys remained entirely unconcerned, entirely absorbed in each other.  It was Desmond’s opinion of them that mattered supremely to Roy; in particular—­Desmond’s opinion of his mother.  After those first puzzling remarks and silences, Roy had held his peace; had not even shown Desmond her picture.  His invitation accepted, he had simply waited, in transcendent faith, for the moment of revelation.  And now he had his reward.  After a prelude of mutual embarrassment, Lance had succumbed frankly to Lady Sinclair’s unexpected charm and her shy irresistible overtures to friendship:—­so frankly, that he was able, now, to hint at his earlier perplexity.

He had seen no Indian women, he explained, except in bazaars or in service; so he couldn’t quite understand, until his own mother made things clearer to him and recommended him to go and see for himself.  Now he had seen—­and succumbed:  and Roy’s very private triumph was unalloyed.  Second only to that triumph, the really important outcome of their glorious Ten Days was that, with Desmond’s help, Roy fought the battle of going on to Marlborough when he was twelve—­and won....

It was horrid leaving them all again; but it did make a wonderful difference knowing there was Desmond at the other end; and together they would champion that doubtfully grateful victim—­Chandranath.  Their zeal proved superfluous.  Chandranath never reappeared at St Rupert’s.  Perhaps his people had arrived at Desmond’s conclusion, that he was not the right “jat” for an English school.  In any case, his disappearance was a relief—­and Roy promptly forgot all about him.

Years later—­many years later—­he was to remember.

* * * * *

After St Rupert’s—­Marlborough:—­and just at first he hated it, as he had hated St Rupert’s, though in a different fashion.  Here it was not so much the longing for home, as a vague yet deepening sense that, in some vital way—­not yet fully understood—­he was different from his fellows But once he reached the haven of Desmond’s study, the good days began in earnest.  He could read and dream along his own lines.  He could scribble verse or prose, when he ought to have been preparing quite other things; and the results, good or bad, went straight to his mother.

Needless to say, she found them all radiant with promise; here and there a flicker of the divine spark:  and, throughout the years of transition, the locked and treasured book that held them was the sheet-anchor to which she clung, till the new Roy should be forged out of the backslidings and renewals incidental to that time of stress and becoming.  What matter their young imperfections, when—­for her—­it was as if Roy’s spirit reached out across the dividing distance and touched her own.  In the days when he seemed most withdrawn, that dear illusion was her secret bread.