'Yes. I think you might have—have consulted me a little before making it,' the girl replied. 'It is something to me personally; to have to live at a place like that now I am nearly grown up.'
She seemed to be purposely emphasising the selfish part of her dissatisfaction out of a kind of reckless defiance.
'Do you quite understand that it was a choice between this appointment and an indefinite return to India?' said Colonel Mildmay.
'I understand that you think so. But I don't see it. There was the London thing. And even if not, I would rather have had India.'
'No, no, Jassie, don't do yourself injustice,' exclaimed her mother. 'Not when you think of the risk to your father's health.'
Jacinth hesitated.
'But there was a choice,' she said; and now there was a touch of timidity in her voice.
Colonel Mildmay considered; they were approaching the crucial point, and he took his resolution.
'No, Jacinth,' he said. 'To my mind, as an honourable man, there was no choice. I should have forfeited for ever my own self-respect had I agreed to Lady Myrtle's proposal.'
And then he rapidly, but clearly, put before her the substance of their old friend's intentions and wishes, and his reasons for refusing to fall in with them.