Broome was silent a moment.  “After all—­it’s natural.  Put yourself in his place, Roy.—­He sees India taking a stronger hold of you each year.  He knows you’ve a deal of your mother and grandfather in your make-up.  He may very well be afraid of the magnet proving too strong at close quarters.  And I suspect he’s jealous—­for England.  He’d like to see your soul centred on Bramleigh Beeches:  and I more than suspect they’d both prefer to keep you nearer home.”

Roy looked distressed.  “Hard lines.  I hadn’t got to that yet.  But it wouldn’t be for always.  And—­there’s George and Jerry sprouting up.”

“I gather that George and Jerry are not precisely—­Roy——­”

“Jeffers—­you old sinner!  I can’t flatter myself——!”

“Don’t be blatantly British, Roy!  You can flatter yourself—­you know as well as I do!”

“I know it’s undiplomatic to contradict my elders!” countered Roy, lunging after pipe and pouch.

“Especially convenient godfathers, with press connections?”

Roy fronted him squarely, laughter lurking in his eyes.  “Are you going to be convenient—­that’s the rub! Will you give Dad a notion I may turn out something decent when I’ve scraped up some crumbs of knowledge——?”

Broome leaned forward and laid a large reassuring hand on his knee.  “Trust me to pull it off, old man—­provided Mother approves.  We couldn’t press it against her wish—­either of us.”

“No—­we couldn’t.”  There was a new gravity in Roy’s tone.  “As I said, she probably knows all about it.  That’s her way.  She understandeth one’s thoughts long before.”  The last in a lower tone—­his eyes dwelling on her portrait above the mantelpiece:  the one in the studio window-seat.

And Broome thought:  “With all his brains, the man’s hardly astir in him yet; and the boy’s still in love with her.  This notion may be an unconscious outlet.  A healthy one—­if Nevil can be got to see it that way.”

After a perceptible pause, he said quietly:  “Remember, Roy, just because she’s unique, she can’t be taken as representative.  She naturally stands for India in your eyes.  But no country can produce beings of her quality by the score——­”

“I suppose not.”  Roy reluctantly shifted his gaze.  “But she does represent what’s best in the Indian spirit:  the spirit that people over here might take more pains to understand.”

“And you are peculiarly well fitted to assist them, I admit—­if Father’s willing to bear the cost of your trip.  It’s a compact between us.  The snare of your A1 dinner shall not have been laid in vain!”

They sat on together for more than an hour.  Then Broome departed, leaving Roy to dream—­in a blue mist of tobacco smoke—­the opal-tinted ego-centric dreams of one-and-twenty.

* * * * *

And to-night one dream eclipsed them all.