"That depends a good deal upon you—doesn't it, Colonel Sahib?" our maiden gravely answered.
Carteret felt as though she dealt him a blow. The pain was numbing. He could neither see, nor could he think clearly. But he traced Mrs. Frayling's hand in this, and could have cursed her elaborately—had it been worth while. But was anything worth while, just now? He inclined to believe not—so called himself a doating fool. And then, though tormented, shaken, turned his mind to making things easy for Damaris.
"Oh! I see that," he told her. "And now you have got hold of your precious little self again and made a start, it's easy enough to manage your affairs—in as far as they need any management of mine—from a distance. This beginning again is triumphant. I congratulate you! You're your own best physician. You know how to treat your case to a marvel. So I abdicate."
"But why? Why abdicate? Do you mean go away? Then Henrietta was right.
What she said was true. I never believed her. I"—
Damaris grew tall in her shame and anger. The solemn eyes blazed.
"Yes—pray go," she said. "It's unwarrantable the way I kept you here—the way I've made use of you. But, indeed, indeed, I am very grateful, Colonel Sahib. I ought to have known better. But I didn't. I have been so accustomed all my life to your help that I took it all for granted. I never thought how much I taxed your forbearance or encroached on your time.—That isn't quite true though. I did have scruples; but little things you said and did put my scruples to sleep. I liked having them put to sleep.—Now you must not let me or my business interfere any more.—Oh! you've treated me, given to me, like a prince," she declared, rising superior to anger and to shame, her eyes shining—"like a king. Nobody can ever take your place or be to me what you've been. I shall always love to think of your goodness to—to him—my father—and to me—always—all my life."
Damaris held out her hands.
"And that's all.—Now let us say no more about this. It's difficult. It hurts us both, I fancy, a little."
But Carteret did not take her proffered hands.
"Dear witch," he said, "we've spoken so freely that I am afraid we must speak more freely still—even though it pains you a little perhaps, and myself, almost certainly very much more. I love you—not as a friend, not as an amiable elderly person should love a girl of your age.—This isn't an affair of yesterday or the day before yesterday. You crept into my heart on your sixth birthday—wasn't it?—when I brought you a certain little green jade elephant from our incomparable Henrietta, and found you asleep in a black marble chair, set on a blood-red sandstone platform, overlooking the gardens of the club at Bhutpur. And you have never crept out of it again—won't do so as long as body and mind hang together, or after. It has been a song of degrees.—For years you were to me a delicious plaything; but a plaything with a mysterious soul, after which I felt, every now and again, in worship and awe. The plaything stage came to an end when I was here with you before we went to Paris, four years ago. For I found then, beyond all question of doubt, that I loved you as a man only loves once, and as most men never love at all. I have tried to keep this from you because I have no right to burden your youth with my middle-age."