Far to Seek. Diver Maud

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СКАЧАТЬ whatever with this—the most important event of his life——

      Tara—torn between wrath and admiration—watched him go. In her eyes he was a hero, a victim of injustice and the density of grown-ups.

      She promptly released Prince, who bounded after his master. She wanted to go too. It was all her fault, bringing that horrid boy to tea. She did hope Roy would explain things properly. But boys were stupid sometimes and she wanted to make sure. While her mother was tactfully suggesting a homeward move, she slipped up to Sir Nevil and insinuated a small hand into his.

      "Uncle Nevil, do believe," she whispered urgently. "Truly it isn't fair——"

      His quick frown warned her to say no more; but the pressure of his hand comforted her a little.

      All the same she hated going home. She hated 'that putrid boy'—a forbidden adjective; but what else could you call him? She was glad he would be gone the day after to-morrow. She was even more glad his nose was bleeding and his eye bunged up and his important blazer all bloodied. Girl though she was, there ran a fiercer strain in her than in Roy.

      As they moved off, she had an inspiration. She was given that way.

      "Mummy darling," she said in her small clear voice, "mayn't I stay back a little and play with Chris. She's so unhappy. Alice could fetch me—couldn't she? Please."

      The innocent request was underlined by an unmistakable glance through her lashes at Joe. She wanted him to hear; and she didn't care if he understood—him and his beaky mother! Clearly her own Mummy understood. She was nibbling her lips, trying not to smile.

      "Very well, dear," she said. "I'll send Alice at half-past six. Run along."

      Tara gave her hand a grateful little squeeze—and ran.

      She would have hated the "beaky mother" worse than ever could she have heard her remark to Lady Despard, when they were alone.

      "Really, a most obstinate, ungoverned child. His mother, of course—a very pretty creature—but what can you expect? Natives always ruin boys."

      Lady Despard—Lilámani Sinclair's earliest champion and friend—could be trusted to deal effectually with a remark of that quality.

      As for Tara—once "the creatures" were out of sight they were extinct. All the embryo mother in her was centred on Roy. It was a shame sending him to his room, like a naughty boy, when he was really a champion, a King-Arthur's-Knight. But if only he properly explained, Uncle Nevil would surely understand——

      And suddenly there sprang a dilemma. How could Roy make himself repeat to Uncle Nevil the rude remarks of that abominable boy? And if not—how was he going to properly explain——?

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

"What a great day came and passed;

Unknown then, but known at last."

—Alice Meynell.

      That very problem was puzzling Roy as he lay on his bed, with Prince's head against his shoulder, aching a a good deal, exulting at thought of his new-born knighthood, wondering how long he was to be treated like a sinner—and, through it all, simply longing for his mother. …

      It was the conscious craving for her sympathy, her applause, that awakened him to his dilemma.

      He had championed her with all his might against that lumpy Boy-of-ten—who kicked in the meanest way; and he couldn't explain why, so she couldn't know ever. The memory of those insulting words hurt him so that he shrank from repeating them to anyone—least of all to her. Yet how could he see her and feel her and not tell her everything? She would surely ask—she would want to know—and then—when he tried to think beyond that point he felt simply lost.

      It was an impasse none the less tragic because he was only nine. To tell her every little thing was as simple a necessity of life as eating or sleeping; and—till this bewildering moment—as much a matter of course. For Lilámani Sinclair, with her Eastern mother-genius, had forged between herself and her first-born a link woven of the tenderest, most subtle fibres of heart and spirit; a link so vital, yet so unassertive, that it bid fair to stand the strain of absence, the test of time. So close a link with any human heart, while it makes for beauty, makes also for pain and perplexity—as Roy was just realising to his dismay.

      At the sound of footsteps he sat up, suddenly very much aware of his unheroic dishevelment. He tugged at the fallen stocking and made hasty dabs at his hair. But it was only Esther the housemaid with an envelope on a tray. Envelopes, however, were always mysterious and exciting.

      His name was scribbled on this one in Tara's hand; and as Esther retreated he opened it, wondering. …

      It contained a half-sheet of note-paper, and between the folds lay a circle of narrow blue ribbon plaited in three strands. But only two of the strands were ribbon; the third was a tress of her gleaming hair. Roy gazed at it a moment, lost in admiration, still wondering; then he glanced at Tara's letter—not scrawled, but written with laboured neatness and precision.

      "Dear Roy—It was splendid. You are Prithvi Raj. I am sending you the bangel like Aunt Lila told us. It can't be gold or jewels. But I pulled the ribbin out of my petticote and put in sum of my hair to make it spangly. So now you are Braselet Bound Brother. Don't forget. From Tara."

      "I hope you aren't hurting much. Do splain to Uncle Nevil properly and come down soon. I am hear playing with Chris. Tara."

      Roy sat looking from the letter to the bangle with a distinctly pleasant kind of mixed-up feeling inside. He was so surprised, so comforted, so elated by this tribute from his High Tower Princess, who was an exacting person in the matter of heroes. Now—besides being a Knight and a champion he was Bracelet-Bound Brother as well.

      Only the other day his mother had told them a tale about this old custom of bracelet-sending in Rajputana:—how, on a certain holy day, any woman—married or not married—may send her bracelet token to any man. If he accepts it, and sends in return an embroidered bodice, he becomes from that hour her bracelet brother, vowed to her service, like a Christian Knight in the days of chivalry. The bracelet may be of gold or jewels or even of silk interwoven with spangles—like Tara's impromptu token. The two who are bracelet-bound might possibly never meet face to face. Yet she, who sends, may ask of him who accepts, any service she pleases; and he may not deny it—even though it involve the risk of his life.

      The ancient custom, she told them, still holds good, though it has declined in use, like all things chivalrous, in an age deafened by the clamour of industrial strife; an age grown blind to the beauty of service, that, in defiance of "progress," still remains the keynote of an Indian woman's life.

      So these privileged children had heard much of it, through the medium of Lilámani's Indian tales; and this particular one had made a deeper impression on Tara than on Roy; perhaps because the budding woman in her relished the power of choice and command it conferred on her own sex. Certainly no thought of possible future commands dawned on Roy. It was her pride in his achievement, so characteristically expressed that flattered his incipient masculine vanity and added a cubit to his stature. He knew now what he meant to be when СКАЧАТЬ