The trouble was that she could not rest satisfied with this achievement.  She was afflicted with a vehement desire—­she called it a sense of duty—­to organise the homes of her less capable relations.  If they resented, they were written down ungrateful.  And Nevil’s ingratitude had become a byword.  For Nevil Sinclair was that unaccountable, uncomfortable thing—­an artist; which is to say he was no true Sinclair, but the son of his mother whose name he bore.  No one, not even Jane, had succeeded in organising him—­nor ever would.

So Lilamani carried on, unmolested, her miniature attempt at the forest school of an earlier day.  Her simple programme included a good deal more than tales of heroism and adventure.  This morning there had been rhythmical exercises, a lively interlude of ‘sums without slates’ and their poems—­a great moment for Roy.  Only by a superhuman effort he had kept his treasure locked inside him for two whole days.  And his mother’s surprise was genuine:  not the acted surprise of grown-ups, that was so patent and so irritating and made them look so silly.  The smile in her eyes as she listened had sent a warm tingly feeling all through him, as if the spring sunshine itself ran in his veins.  Naturally he could not express it so; but he felt it so.  And now, as he lay looking and listening, he felt it still.  The wonder of her face and her voice, and all the many wonders that made her so beautiful, had hitherto been as much a part of him as the air he breathed.  But this morning, in some dim way, things were different—­and he could not tell why....

His own puzzled thoughts and her face and her voice became entangled with the chivalrous story of Prithvi Raj holding court in his hill fortress with Tara—­fit wife for a hero, since she could ride and fling a lance and bend a bow with the best of them.  When Roy caught him up, he was in the midst of a great battle with his uncle, who had broken out in rebellion against the old Rana of Chitor.

“All day long they were fighting, and all night long they were lying awake beside great watch-fires, waiting till there came dawn to fight again....”

His mother was telling, not reading now.  He knew it at once from the change in her tone.

“And when evening came, what did Prithvi Raj?  He was carelessly strolling over to the enemy’s camp, carelessly walking into his Uncle’s tent to ask if he is well, in spite of many wounds.  And his uncle, full of surprise, made answer:  ’Quite well, my child, since I have the pleasure to see you.’  And when he heard that Prithvi had come even before eating any dinner, he gave orders for food:  and they two, who were all day seeking each other’s life, sat there together eating from one plate.

“‘In the morning we will end our battle, Uncle,’ said Prithvi Raj, when time came to go.

“‘Very well, child, come early,’ said Surajmul.