Daphne looked up at him in amazement. But there was no passion in his face—only an infinite tenderness. To him she was simply a woman—one of the rarest and fairest of her sex, perhaps, but still simply a woman—whom to succour, without expectation or desire of reward, was the merest courtesy on the part of any knight worthy of the name. This was a man! Daphne bowed her head, wondering dimly and scornfully at the insensate folly of Nina Tallentyre.
"Shall we go back to the hotel?" asked Carthew at length.
There was no reply. Turning to note the cause, he saw something bright and glistening fall upon his companion's hand—then another. With innate loyalty and delicacy he averted his gaze, and surveyed the distant seascape with laborious intentness.
Meanwhile Daphne sat on, her head still bowed. Through the night air, from the hotel verandah, there came the refrain of a waltz. It was called Caressante, she thought. Carthew knew it too, and dug his teeth into his lower lip. Waltzes have an unfortunate habit of reviving the memories of yester year.
"Don't go in," said Daphne at length. "Don't leave me—I can't bear it!" Her voice broke.
Suddenly Carthew turned to her.
"Daphne"—his voice was low, but he spoke with intense earnestness—"you are lonely, I know, and sad; and you are too proud to own it. Shall I tell you who is more lonely and more sad, and too proud to own it too?"
"Do you mean—" were Jim Carthew's good resolutions crumbling?—"yourself?"
"No, no,—nothing of the kind. I mean—your husband!" Then he continued hurriedly—
"Daphne, if I thought I was leaving you to real loneliness and inevitable wretchedness, I—well, perhaps I shouldn't go away at all. But I—I am not needed. Little friend, you have the finest husband in all the world, waiting for you. For all his domineering ways, he is shy, and wants knowing. You have never discovered that. I don't believe you know him a bit. It all comes of having begun wrong. Go back and study him. Give him a fair chance! Give yourself a fair chance! You and I have always been friends: will you promise me this? Go back, and give yourself and Jack Carr another chance."