"Well?" she said at length, as he remained silent.
"I have been thinking," he began awkwardly, "over what you said yesterday—about Evelyn. You remember?"
"Yes."
"And I have been wanting to tell you that I believe you were right. You generally are. I believe we ought to give her the chance you spoke of. Besides—I asked too much of you. This may be a slow business; and really we have no right to trade on your unselfishness to the extent I proposed. You understand me?"
For the life of him he could not ask her to go outright; his excuse appeared to him lame enough to be an insult itself. A fierce temptation assailed him to push up the detested shade and discover whether he had hurt this girl, who had done so infinitely much for him. But he grasped the side of his chair, keeping his arm rigid as steel; and awaited her answer, which seemed an eternity in coming.
Indeed, if he had struck her, Honor could scarcely have been more stunned, more indignant, than she was at that moment. But when she found her voice it was at least steady, if not devoid of emotion.
"No, Theo," she said. "For the first time in my life I don't understand you. But I see clearly—what you wish; and if you feel absolutely certain that you are making the right decision for Evelyn, I have no more to say. For myself, you are asking a far harder thing to-day than you did yesterday. But that is no matter, if it is really best for you both—I don't quite know what Dr Mackay will say. I will see him about it this evening; and you will please tell Evelyn—yourself."
He knew now that he had hurt her cruelly; and with knowledge came the revelation that he was playing a coward's part in rewarding her thus for all she had done; in depriving Evelyn of her one support and shield, merely because he distrusted his own self-mastery at a time of severe mental stress and bodily weakness.
His imperative need for a sight of her face conquered him at last. Quick as thought his hand went up to the rim of the shade. But Honor was quicker still. The instinct to shield him from harm swept everything else aside. In a second she had reached him and secured his hand.