"I told him he wasn't rich enough. It was horribly vulgar, but it's the sort of thing he understands. I've never seen a man more humiliated. If I had told him he was a blackguard, he wouldn't have minded. It's wonderful how he has assimilated our Western ideals."
"Sigrid——"
"Yes, I know—I'm in a detestable mood. I'm upset, Smithy. I've always controlled my life, moulded it into the shape I wanted. I was so sure that I could never be beaten by it. I thought there was only one real catastrophe we human beings were afflicted with—ill-health—and that I was prepared to master in my own way. But now——"
Mrs. Smithers picked up her pencil and tapped the table with a judicial air of summing up.
"You're out of sorts, Sigrid. Look at things straight. Two years ago we started off on a wild-goose chase. I knew it was a wild-goose chase, but you had to be humoured and so I just let you run. Besides, you had a grain of horse-sense in you. If you couldn't find what you wanted in those two years, you'd take the next best thing. Well, you haven't found it——"
"How do you know? What about the Rajah?"
"Sigrid—your mind wants a good spring-cleaning. It's full of cobwebs and horrors——"
"Or Major Tristram?"
Mrs. Smithers seized upon her mittens and folded them up into a tight ball and smacked them viciously down on the table.
"Of course, you're in love with him, the poor benighted, footling ninny. That's the whole trouble."