"Miss Cary is young and inexperienced and probably did not realize what she was doing," he retorted. "From what she told me, she takes the whole matter as a big joke, and now that the fat is in the fire it's no use enlightening her."
Lois made no immediate answer, though she may have had her doubts on the subject of Beatrice Cary's inexperience.
"The poor Rajah!" she said, after a pause, as Stafford walked curiously about the room. "I could not help being sorry for him. He seemed so eager and enthusiastic and anxious to please us, and we were so cold and ungrateful. Tell me, does it really make so much difference?"
He came back to her side. Something in her voice had touched him and stirred to life a warmth of feeling which was more than that of friendship.
"What makes so much difference?" he asked, smiling down at her small troubled face. "What are you worrying yourself about now?"
"Oh, it has always troubled me," she answered with the impetuosity which characterized her. "I have often worried about it. I mean," she added, as he laughed at her incoherence, "all that race distinction. Does it really mean so much? Will it never be bridged over?"
"Never," he said. "It can't be. It is a justified distinction and to my mind those who ignore it are to be despised."
He had answered her question with only a part seriousness, his whole interest concentrated on the charm of her personality. But for once her gravity resisted the suppressed merriment in his eyes.
"Are the natives, then, so contemptible?" she asked.
"Not exactly contemptible, but inferior. They have not our culture, and whatsoever they borrow from us is only skin-deep. Beneath the varnish they are their elemental selves—lazy, cruel, treacherous and unscrupulous. No, no. Each race must keep to itself. Our strength in India depends on our exclusiveness—upon keeping ourselves apart and above as superior beings. So long as they recognize we are superior, so long will they obey us."