"No—Surrey," said Roy, and his throat contracted. Clearly the moment had come. "My father's not only a Baronet. He's a rather famous artist—Sir Nevil Sinclair. Perhaps you've heard the name?"
She wrinkled her brows. "N-no.—You see, we do live in blinkers! What's his line?"
"Mostly Indian subjects——"
"Oh, the Ramayána man? I remember—I did see a lovely thing of his before I came out here. But then——?" She stood still and drew away from him. "One heard he had married...."
"Yes. He married a beautiful high-caste Indian girl," said Roy, low and steadily. "My mother——"
"Your—mother——?"
He could scarcely see her face; but he felt all through him the shock of the disclosure; realised, with a sudden furious resentment, that she was seeing his adored mother simply as a stumbling-block....
It was as if a chasm had opened between them—a chasm as wide as the East is from the West.
Those few seconds of eloquent silence seemed interminable. It was she who spoke.
"Didn't it strike you that I had—the right to know this ... before...?"