Katherine laughed slightly. “How like an Englishman! Why are ‘humans’ the only animals in whom you do not exact breeding?”
They went on through the woods talking of his family, who had remained in India, and of the political matters which had brought him home for a personal conference with the Home Government. When they came out on to the head of the cliff they sat down in sight of the sea.
“How homelike it all looks! That brown lugger, those leaden clouds, that rainy distance.”
He was silent a minute or two, touched to the vague sadness of the exile. Then he turned to her.
“Now tell me of yourself; I have thought much of you since your father’s death. It was a frightful end.”
“It was.”
“Do you remember our long talk under the magnolias? How little we thought then that his ambitions would so soon be over! You don’t look well. It must have been a great shock.”
She gave a gesture of assent.
“And you are sole mistress of everything?”
“Yes.”