I
would have married you...."

He looked at her, and his heart contracted sharply.

"Poor Rose--poor darling!" He was his normal self again. "What a beast
of a time you must have had! But--how _did_ you propose to accomplish
it----?"

She told him, haltingly, of the Kashmir plan; and he listened, half
incredulous, leaning back again; thinking: "She's plucky; but still, all
she troubled about really was to save her face."

And she, noting his impatient frown, was thinking: "He's like a
sensitive plant charged with gunpowder. Is it the touchiness of----?"

"I'm afraid I'd have kicked at that." His voice broke in upon her
thought. "Such a hole-and-corner business. Hardly fair on my father...."

"Well, there's no question of it now," she reminded him, with a touch of
asperity. "I've told you--the whole thing's defunct. Later--we'll be
glad, perhaps, that I discovered in time that part of me could not be
coerced--by the other part, which still wants you as much as ever. We
should have been landed in disaster--soon or late. Better soon--before
the roots have struck too deep. But you're so furiously angry with the
_reason_--that you seem almost to forget ... the fact."

His eyes brooded on her, full of pain and the old, half-unwilling
infatuation. He could not so hurt her pride as to confess that their
discovery had been mutual. Let her glean what satisfaction she could
from having taken the lead--first and last. Part of him, also, still
wanted her; though in the depths, he felt a glimmer of relief that the
thing was done--and by her.

"No," he said, "I don't forget the fact. But--the reason cuts deep. I
want to know----" he hesitated--"is all this ... antipathy you can't get
over--you and your mother--the ordinary average attitude? Or is it ...
exceptionally acute?"

She drew in her lip. Why _would_ he force her to hurt him more? For they
had got beyond polite evasion. Clearly he wanted the truth.

"Mother's is acute," she said, not looking at him. "Mine--I'm afraid--is
... the ordinary average feeling against it. The exception would be to
find a girl--especially out here--who could honestly ... get over
it----"

"_Unless_--she cared in the real big way," Roy interposed; his own pain
goading him to an unfair hit at her. "To be blunt, I suppose it's the
case--of Lance over again. You've found ... you don't love me
enough----?"

"And _you_----?" she struck back, turning on him the cool deliberate
look of early