Was it really coming, the place at which he would have to be stopped, after all her fruitless endeavors to get him to move in any direction at all? It looked like it; he was very obviously embarrassed and flushed; he did not even try to meet her eyes.
"The fact is," he went on, "I simply can't go without saying it, and you've been so awfully good to me—you've let me feel we're friends." He paused, and Estelle leaned forward, her eyes melting with encouragement.
"I am so glad you feel like that, Lionel," she murmured. "Do please say anything—anything you like. I shall always understand and forgive, if it is necessary for me to forgive."
"You're awfully generous," he said gratefully. She smiled, and put out her hand again toward the chair. This time he sat down in it, but he turned it to face her.
He was a big man and he seemed to fill the room in which they sat. His blue-gray eyes fixed themselves on hers intently, his whole being seemed absorbed in what he was about to say.
"You see," he began, "I think you may be making a big mistake. Naturally Winn's awfully fond of you and all that and you've just started life, and you like to live in your own country, surrounded by jolly little things, and perhaps India seems frightening and far away." Estelle shrank back a little; he put his hand on the back of her chair soothingly. "Of course it must be hard," he said. "Only I want to explain it to you. Winn's heart is yours, I know, but it's in his work, too, as a man's must be, and his work's out there; it's not here at all.
"When I came here and looked about me, and saw the house and the garden and the country, where we've had such jolly walks and talks—it all seemed temporary somehow, made up—not quite natural, I can't explain what I mean but not a bit like Winn. I needn't tell you what he is, I dare say you think it's cheek of me to talk about him at all, I can quite understand it if you do, only perhaps there's a side of him I've seen more of, and which makes me want to say what I know he isn't—what I don't think even love can make him be—he isn't tame!"
He stopped abruptly; Estelle's eyes had hardened and grown very cold.
"I don't know what you mean," she said. "Has he complained of my keeping him here?"
Lionel pushed back his chair.