"The truth, please," she pleaded earnestly. "You said that your mind was free, that you could stand outside yourself and look on at what you were doing, as artists do. It never once occurred to you that you wanted me up there in the ladies' gallery, too, at the moment of your success, to witness it--to--yes, to share it with you?"
The word was out at last--the word which she had been striving with her modesty to reach.
"Be frank, please," she prayed.
Harry Rames was at a loss how to wrap the brutal truth up so that it should not hurt overmuch. He had no other intention at this moment. He was for once not considering what effect his answer would have upon his own prospects and future.
"You were in my thoughts," he said. "That's true. For I was thinking that now I could come to you. But, yes, I wanted to be sure of myself first."
"Yes," said Cynthia slowly, and with humility she analyzed the meaning of his words. "You never thought of me as a kind of inspiration to an even greater success in the future if you succeeded now, or as a kind of consolation if you failed. It may be vanity to say so, but I think that is what a woman in whom you were interested, and who was interested in you, would have liked you to have thought. I was, after all, shut out, wasn't I? I was to hear of the achievement after it was done and over, and I was neither to share the preliminary fears, nor feel the revulsion when the triumph came."
"Yes, but look at it from my point of view. There are many who want to marry you--men with something to offer. It wouldn't have been fair if I didn't bring something in my basket too."
"Fair!" cried Cynthia scornfully. "Oh, I know, that's the point of view of the man--at least," and as she realized that she had been unjust, her face dimpled to smiles, "of the men one rather likes." For it occurred to her that Lord Helmsdale would have been troubled by no such scruples.
"No," she said. "You wouldn't have borrowed another man's thoroughbred so that you might cut a dashing figure while you proposed."
Rames had no idea of what she meant, and he behaved as he usually did when unintelligible things were said to him by women. He asked for no explanations and just took no notice of Cynthia's words. He sat quietly at her side and waited.