"Oh, shut up about Honor!" he broke out irritably; and set his teeth directly the words were spoken.
Evelyn started. "I won't shut up about Honor! I love her, and you're very ungrateful not to love her too, when she's been so good to you."
She spoke almost angrily, and he made haste to rectify his slip.
"No. I'm not ungrateful. I—love her right enough."
He thought the statement would have choked him. But Evelyn noticed nothing, and for a while neither spoke.
"Look here, Ladybird," he said suddenly, "I can't have you calling yourself names as you did just now. You only get these notions into your small head because I have condemned you to a life that makes demands on you beyond your strength. I ought to have seen from the start that it was a case of choosing between the Frontier and you. At all events, I see it clearly now; and—it's not too late. One can always exchange into a down-country regiment, you know. Or I have interest enough to get a Staff appointment somewhere—Simla, perhaps. How would that suit you?"
The suggestion took away her breath.
"You don't mean that, Theo—seriously?" she gasped; and the repressed eagerness in her tone sounded the death-knell of his dearest ambitions.
"I was never more serious in my life," he answered steadily.
"You would leave the Frontier—the regiment—and never come back?"