“Forgive! What a harsh word from your lips. Pray consider. On your own estimate she owes me two hundred thousand thanks.”
“Arthur, I don’t like you as a cynic. I am old enough to be your mother. Indeed, it was my love for your mother that first led me to take an interest in your welfare, and I should be doing wrong if I hid from you the fact that it nearly broke Rosamund’s heart to throw you over.”
“I trust the lapse of years has healed the fracture,” he said.
Lady Hilbury looked at him in silence for a moment. She remembered the white–faced subaltern who heard, at her hospitable table, that Rosamund Miller had married a wealthy planter at Madeira—married him suddenly, within a month after her departure from the coast.
“Is there another woman?” she asked quietly.
“Not single spies but whole battalions. How I have managed to escape their combined charms all these years is a marvel. Seriously, Lady Hilbury, you would not have me take a wife to my special swamp, and I would not care to leave her in England drawing half my pay. All my little luxuries would vanish at one fell swoop.”
“I would like to see you happy, Arthur, and there is always the possibility of marrying some one who would demand no sacrifices.”
“Is Mrs. Laing out?” he inquired.
“Yes. Of course you want to meet her again?”
“I think not. I don’t mean to be unkind, but the tender recollections I cherish are too dear to be replaced by a fresh set.”