"Here have I been coming to her house on sufferance ... polluting her precious drawing-room, while she's been avoiding me as if I was a leper, all because I'm the son of a sainted woman, whose shoe she wouldn't have been worthy ... oh, I beg your pardon——" He checked himself sharply. "After all—she's your mother."
Rose felt her cheeks growing uncomfortably warm. "I did warn you, in Lahore, some people felt ... that way."
"Well, I never dreamed they would behave that way. It's not as if I'd been born and reared in India and might claim relations in her compound."
"My dear—one can't make her see the difference," Rose urged desperately.
"Well, I won't stay any longer in her house. I won't eat her food——"
He pushed aside his plate so impatiently that Rose felt almost angry. But she saw his hand tremble; and covered it with her own.
"Roy—my dear! You're ill; and you're being rather exaggerated over things——"
"Well, you put me in such a false position. You ought to have told me."
She winced at that and let fall her hand.
"That's all one's reward for trying to save you from jars when you were knocked up and unhappy. And I told you ... I defied her ... I ... I would have married you...."