insignia of breeding--noticeably small hands and feet.

He was poling the second punt with less skill and assurance than Roy.
His attention was palpably distracted by a vision of Tara among the
cushions in the bows; an arm linked through her mother's, as though
defending her against the implication of being older than any one else,
or in the least degree out of it because of that trifling
detail--tacitly admitted, while hotly denied; which was Tara all over.

Certainly Lady Despard still looked amazingly young; still emanated the
vital charm she had transmitted to her child. And Tara at twenty, in
soft butter-coloured frock with roses in her hat, was a vision alluring
enough to distract any young man from concentration on a punt pole.
Vivid, eager and venturesome, singularly free from the bane of
self-consciousness; not least among her graces--and rare enough to be
notable--was the grace of her chivalrous affection for the older
generation. In Tara's eyes, girls who patronised their mothers and
tolerated their fathers were anathema. It was a trait certain to impress
Roy's Rajput cousin; and Broome wondered whether Helen was alive to the
disturbing possibility; whether, for all her genuine love of the East,
she would acquiesce....

Only the other day, it seemed, he and she had sat together among the
rocks of the dear old Cap, listening to Nevil's amazing news. She it was
who had championed his choice of a bride: and Lilámani had justified her
championship to the full. But then--Lilámani was one in many thousands;
and this affair would be the other way about:--Tara, the apple of their
eye; Tara, with her wild-flower face and her temperament of clear
flame----?