"On the contrary ... it was primarily my doing ... as you justly pointed out to me a week or two ago."
Roy groaned. The irony of the situation stung like a whip-lash. "Did it amount to an engagement?" he persisted.
"There or thereabouts." Lance paused and took a long pull at his cigar. "But—it was quite between ourselves—in fact, conditional on ... the headway I could manage to make. She—cared, in a way. Not—as I do. That was one hitch. The other was Oh 'Ell's antipathy to soldiers, as husbands for her precious family. She—Rose—knew there would be ructions; a downright tussle, in fact. Well—she'll go almost any length to avoid ructions; specially with her mother. I don't blame her. The woman's a caution. So—she shirked facing the music ... till she felt quite sure of herself...."
"Till she felt sure of herself, there should have been no engagement," Roy decreed, amazed at his own rising anger. "Unfair on you."
Desmond's smile was the ghost of its normal self. "You always were a bit of a purist, Roy! Besides—it was my doing again. I pressed the point. And I think ... she liked me ... loving her. She really seemed to be coming my way—till you turned up——" He clenched his hand and leaned back again, drawing a deep breath. "I'm forcing myself to tell you all this—since you've asked for it—because I won't have you blaming her——"
Roy said nothing. Remembering how, throughout, the initiative had been hers, how hard he had striven against being ensnared, he did blame her, a good deal more than he could very well admit to this friend, whose single-hearted devotion made his own mere mingling of infatuation and passion seem artificial as gaslight in the blaze of dawn.—But knowing so much, he must know all.
"How long—was it on?"
"Oh, about three weeks before you came. I was on a long while. Before Christmas."
"Since when has it been—off?"
Lance hesitated. "Well—things became shaky after Kapurthala. That day—the wedding, you remember?—I spoke rather straight ... about you. I saw you were getting keen. And I didn't want you to come a cropper——"