"You are giving yourself up," he said contemptuously, "so that your people for a few more years may live as we are living now."
"So that we may for a few more years be allowed to work as we must," she corrected him.
Peter was silent. He had seen her justification, but his passion prompted him to put it away. Lady Mary now touched him to the quick.
"You begin to see that I am right," she said, searching for his acquiescence.
"I see nothing," he insisted. "I only see that I am losing you."
"You make this very difficult," she said, trembling before the passion of his voice.
"Difficult!" He caught her by the arm. "Why should you care what I say or believe?"
She looked at his fingers imprinted in her flesh. She was weary and faint. She knew that love without reserve was confessed in her eyes.
"You know that I care, Peter. Please let me go."
Peter leaned towards her. He wanted to see her face. She felt that in a moment she must yield the message shut under her lids. She desperately shook free of him and stood away. But Peter read the deep flush of her neck and the motion she made to suppress the labour of her breath. She superbly filled his eyes against a background that had grown dim. He caught at her.