“We can make up for that.”
“But I don’t—care about you. I have never thought of any one in that way. It is absurd,” she went on.
“You’ll have to, sometime or other,” he declared. “I’ll take you travelling with me, show you the world, new worlds, unnamed rivers, untrodden mountains. Or do you want to go and see where the little brown people live among the mimosa and the cherry blossoms? I’ll take you so far away that this place and this life will seem like a dream.”
Her breath caught a little.
“Don’t, please,” she begged. “You know very well—or rather you don’t know, perhaps, but I must tell you—that I couldn’t. I am here, tied and bound, and I can’t escape.”
“Ah! dear, don’t believe it,” he went on earnestly. “There isn’t any bond so strong that I won’t break it for you, no knot I won’t untie, if you give me the right.”
They were climbing slowly on to the tee. He stepped forward and pulled her up. Her hand was cold. Her eyes were raised to his, very softly yet almost pleadingly.
“Please don’t say anything more,” she begged. “I can’t—quite bear it just now. You know, you must remember—there is my mother. Do you think that I could leave her to struggle alone?”
His caddy, who had teed the ball, and who had regarded the proceedings with a moderately tolerant air, felt called upon at last to interfere.
“We’d best get on,” he remarked, pointing to two figures in the distance, “or they’ll say we’ve cut in.”