Oxford seemed to both a paradise of knowledge and of friendly freedom.
Small wonder if they believed that, in one bold leap, they had bridged
the gulf between East and West.

At Bramleigh Beeches, Lilámani--who knew all without telling--had
welcomed them with open arms: and Lady Despard no less. It was here that
Dyán met Tara, who had 'no use' for colleges--and, in the course of a
few vacation visits, the damage had been done.

At first he had felt startled, even a little dismayed. English education
and delayed marriage had involved no dream of a possible English wife.
With the Indian Civil in view, he had hoped to meet some girl student of
his own race, sufficiently advanced to remain outside purdah and to
realise that a modern Indian husband might crave companionship from his
wife no less than motherhood, worship, and service.

And now ... _this_----!

Striding across the field, in the glimmer of a moon just beginning to
take colour, he alternately raged at her light rebuff, and applauded her
maidenly hesitation. As a Hindu and a man of breeding, his natural
instinct had been to approach her parents; but he knew enough of modern
youth, by now, to realise that English parents were a side issue in
these little affairs. For himself, the primitive lover flamed in him. He
wanted to kneel and worship her. In the same breath, he wanted simply to
possess her, would she or no....

And in saner moods, uncertainty racked him. What did they amount to, her
smiles and flashes of sympathy, her kind, cousinly ways? What did Roy's
cousinly kindness amount to, with Arúna? If in India they suffered from