Thea’s laugh ended in a sigh.  “I warned Miss Mills.  But the creature is getting out of hand.  I suppose it means he ought to go home.  Mr Neill,” she explained to Roy, “is Vinx’s shorthand secretary:  volcanic, but indispensable to the Great Work!  So I must fly off and obliterate my superfluous son.”

Her eyes tried to impart the warning he had not heard.  Useless.  His attention was centred on Aruna.

“Wonderful—­isn’t she?” the girl murmured, looking after her.  Then swiftly, half-shyly, she glanced up at him.  “Still more wonderful that, at last, you have come, that I am here too—­only through her.  She told you?”

“Yes.  A little.  I want to hear more.”

“Presently.  I would rather push away sad things—­now you are here.  If there was only Dyan too—­like Oxford days.  And—­oh, Roy, I was bad never writing ... about her.  I did try.  But so difficult....  And—­you knew——?”

“Yes—­I knew,” he said in a repressed voice.  On that subject he could not trust himself just yet.  Every curve and fold of her sari, and the half-seen coils of her dark hair, every movement, every quaint turn of phrase, set his nerves vibrating with an ecstasy that was pain.  For the moment, he wanted simply to be aware of her; to hug the dear illusion that the years between were a dream.  And illusion was heightened by the trivial fact that her appearance was identical in every detail.  Was it chance?  Or had she treasured them all this time?  Only she herself looked older.  Though her face kept its pansy aspect, her cheek-bones were a shade too prominent; no veiled glow of health under her dusky skin.  But her smile could still atone for all shortcomings.

“Let’s sit down,” he added after a strained silence.  “And tell me—­what’s come to Dyan?”

She shook her head.  “Oh—­if we could know.  Not much use, after all, trying to push away sadness!” She sank into her chair and looked up at him.  “The more you push it away, the more it comes flowing in from everywhere.  Everything so broken and confused from this terrible War.  At the beginning how they said all would be made new; East and West firmly united.  But here, at home, while the best were fighting, the worst were too busy with ugly whispers and untrue talk.  Even holy men, behind the purdah....”

“As bad as that, is it?” asked Roy, distracted from his own sensations by the subject that lay nearest his heart.  “And you think Dyan’s in with that crew?”

“Yes, we are afraid....  A pity he came back from France too soon, because half his left arm must be cut off.  Then—­you heard—­he went to Calcutta?”

“Yes, I wrote at the time.  He didn’t answer.  I haven’t heard since.”

She nodded.  Sudden tears filled her eyes.  “Always now ... no answer.  Like trying to speak with some one dead.  So Grandfather fears he was not only studying art.  You know how he is too quick to catch fire.  And too easily, he might believe those men who spin words like spider’s webs.  Also he was very sore losing his arm, by some small stupid chance; and there was bitterness for that trouble ... of Tara....”