He smiled indulgently. "And so you're asking me—a soldier!—to run away."
"No, to let me do it. It's so—so impossible that I can't face it."
"Oh, nonsense!" He spoke with kindly impatience. "Don't you love me? You said just now—in the dining-room—when—"
"Yes, I know; I did say that. But, you see—we must consider it—love can't be the most important thing in the world for either you or me."
"I understand. You mean to say it's duty. Very good. In that case, my duty is as plain as a pikestaff."
"Your duty to stand by me?"
"I should be a hound if I didn't do it."
"And I should feel myself a common adventuress if I were to let you."
"Oh—I say!"
His protest this time was more emphatic. There was even a pleading note in it. In the course of two or three hours he had got back much of the feeling he had had in England that she was more than an exquisite lady, that she was the other part of himself. It seemed superfluous on her part to fling open the way of retreat for him too wide.