"What difference would it have made? We both knew!"
He was amazed at her fortitude. No longer was she the helpless, unhappy child weighed down by relentless fate, but a woman determined to grapple with the future. The Carrington spirit of pluck and endurance still lived in the last of the line.
A little cloud of masculine grievance gathered in his mind, rose between them. His was the blame for the whole situation, and he was prepared to sacrifice all for her sake, to take her away that they might live for themselves alone. Since his outburst on the balcony wild schemes had invaded his brain, though as yet, without practical plan; now it chafed him to feel that she might not be ready to follow his lead in joyful appreciation of his purpose. The realisation fanned his passion, strong as it was already.
"Are you thinking of yourself or of me?" he asked bitterly.
"Oh, how can you!" she cried, pained beyond further expression of reproach; yet she understood that his cruelty arose from the very strength of his feelings, and while with feminine instinct she divined his love-selfishness she cared for him none the less.
"Look here," she said firmly, "I belong to Robert. You belong to India. And we've both got to remember——"
"Oh, I know what you're going to say—remember our duty. Duty be damned," he retorted, beside himself. "You can't love me as I love you or you wouldn't talk like this. What do I matter to India?—I'm only a fly on the wheel. What do you matter to Crayfield, any more than if you were—well, a pearl necklace, for instance!"
"I know my value to Robert exactly," she told him with a wry little smile; "but I married him for what he could give me, and he has given it. I don't agree with you as to your value to India. India depends on men like you; and if you are flies on the wheel, the wheel wouldn't go round without you."
It was true, and he knew it. All the same, he felt that Stella meant more to him now than his duty to India and all his ambition.