She sighed. "All the same—poor thing! It's too lovely...."
"Well then, don't wear it; but keep it"—his tone changed—"as a reminder. We have been something to one another ... if it couldn't be everything."
Her eyes were still lowered, her lips not quite steady.
"You've been ... very near it to me. Yet—it seemed, the more ... I cared, the less I could get over ... that. And I felt as if you—wouldn't get over.. Lance."
"My God! It's been a bitter, contrary business all round! I can't bear hurting you. And—the talk and all that——" She nodded. For her that was not the least bitter part of it all. "And you——? Oh, Lord—will it be Hayes to the fore again?"
"No!" Reproach underlay her vehemence. "Mother may rage. I shall go with Dolly Smyth to Kashmir.—And you——?"
"Oh, I'll go out to Narkhanda."
"Alone? But you're ill. You want looking after."
"Can't be helped. Azim Khan's a treasure. And really I don't care a damn what comes to me."
"Oh, but I do——!"