"You are simply shifting the argument," he answered without unbending. "You know whether—I love you. In fact, if it comes to that, it is you, my dear, who have not yet grasped the full meaning of the word, or you would not need to be told that the free choice I am offering you of compromise with me, or independence—without me, is the utmost proof one can give that you and your happiness stand absolutely first——"
At that she made an impulsive movement towards him, and her fingers closed upon his arm. But with inexorable gentleness he unclasped her hand, and put it from him.
"No, no," he said, and there was more pain than hardness in his tone. "Better keep clear of that form of argument, for the present. Passion settles nothing. Contact is not fusion. We have proved it,—you and I. It is not a question of what we feel. That may be taken for granted by now. It is a question of what we are, individually, intrinsically; of how much each of us is ready to forego for the sake of the one essential form of union that counts between a man and woman who are not mere materialists; and we are neither of us that. I don't want my answer to-night, nor even to-morrow. I have not spoken on impulse; and I want you to think very thoroughly over all I have said when your brain is cooler than it is just now."
"But suppose—I don't want to think it over?"
A half smile dispelled his gravity. "Knowing you intimately, I should not suppose anything else! In the two big crises of our life, remember, you were ruled purely by impulse and emotion, and you brought us very near to shipwreck in consequence. But this time, you will do what I ask, and give my slower methods a chance; because this time your decision will be final. If we are to separate again, we separate for life. That much I have decided. The rest—I leave in your hands."
She stood very still, like one magnetised, her gaze riveted on the carpet. His steadfast aloofness had chilled her first headlong impulse of surrender; and she knew now that he was right:—that, dearly as she loved him, independence in thought, word, and act were still the breath of life for her and for her art. He had put the matter to practical proof with a sledge-hammer directness all his own; had opened her eyes to the humiliating truth that never in all her thirty years of living had she given up anything that mattered for any one. And now——
She raised her head with a start, Zyarulla had brought in a telegram, and Lenox stood reading it with a transfigured face, an eager light in his eyes.
"What is it?" she wondered, not daring to ask. "He is going away somewhere—he is delighted. And he says I come absolutely first."
Then Lenox raised his eyes, and a lightning instinct told her that for the moment he had forgotten her existence.
"Well, Quita," he said, unconscious elation in his tone, "I think the Foreign Office must have known we had got to a difficult corner, and decided to give us a helping hand. They want me to undertake an exploration north of Kashmir, and remonstrate with a small chief who has been misbehaving up there. I am to report myself at Simla ek dum,[1] to receive detailed instructions of the mission, and we shall have time enough to think things out very thoroughly before I get back."