"Possibly," she answered. "But, if you cared enough, there might be another chance!"
"What do you mean?" he interrupted, regarding her curiously. In reply, she quietly drew an official document from her bosom and handed it to him across the table without a word. He colored, and she saw that his hand trembled slightly, betraying the emotion he felt as he opened the envelope and glanced hastily over its contents. "The Ministry to Turkey—Blanch!" he gasped, regarding her in astonishment.
"Yes," she answered nervously, watching closely the effect the news had upon him. "I received it a week ago. The President knows how clever you are, Jack, and has promised to keep the position open for you if you will consent to accept it. You know, he always had a warm place in his heart for you."
"Blanch!" he said again, overcome by emotion. And laying the document down upon the table in front of him he rose to his feet.
"Turkey, Jack, is but a step to London, St. Petersburg, Berlin or Paris," she said softly, looking up at him and catching her breath in the effort to conceal her excitement. "It is yours, Jack, if you wish it. Understand," she resumed, lowering her gaze and running her slender white hand slowly back and forth over the edge of her half-open fan, "that it is yours without reservation. You are under no obligations. Turkey and—I are two different things," she added slowly and with difficulty, without looking up; her neck and face turning a deep scarlet. She felt the intensity of his blazing eyes upon her.
"Blanch!" he cried, and this time there was a note of anger in his voice. "Don't think me ungrateful, I beg of you. I appreciate what you have done, and I thank you with my whole heart, but—I can't do it, Blanch!"
"Jack!" she cried, throwing off the mask and springing to her feet. "I can't stand it any longer! I can't see you wreck your life in this way! Can't you see the folly you are committing? Don't think me presumptuous; that I am trying to meddle, interfere in your life. I am merely trying to save you from yourself! It's your last chance, Jack. Go back again and never mind me; I've nothing to do with it! I can easily understand how this life can have a certain fascination for you, but only for a time; it can't last. The more I see of it, the more I'm convinced that I'm right. What's the use of mincing words, fencing about the truth any longer? I understand—I've seen it from the first. It's not this life, but the woman that holds you!" she cried abruptly and passionately, almost fiercely, betraying her jealousy.
"Don't wreck your life and happiness before it is too late. You must tire of her as inevitably as you will tire of this life, and what then? Can't you see that, when you have exhausted the glamour, and the fascination of things is gone, she would no longer be a companion to you? The difference between you—your lives, your world and hers, is too great. It is insurmountable—impassable! What can she know of the world which you and I know, to which you belong? Of another race, another blood, she must ever remain an alien, a thing apart from yourself; there can never be a true affinity between you. She is a savage—an aborigine sprung from the soil. The tinsel and veneer of civilization which she has acquired doesn't change her and can't endure. She is still a savage in spite of it, the product of savage ancestry living close to the soil. The simplicity and glamour and freedom of this life casts a spell over one and attracts one of your adventurous nature, sated with the pleasures and luxuries of our world, but will the spell last? Once you have exhausted the simple, elemental joys of such a life, it must become irksome, mere animal existence, unbearable, positive boredom to you. That in her which attracts you now must inevitably become commonplace in time and repel you. You could not endure that, Jack; you who are evolved through thousands of generations from a higher, superior race. Your reason and instinct must tell you that.
"Jack!" she cried in a fresh outburst, "we were made for one another! How can she, an Indian, the product of savagery, understand you who are of a different race, the product of civilization? Your soul can never find the full response in hers that it can in mine. I know I was foolish—call it willful rather than foolish—the instinct that is born in me to command. I should not have let you go. I should have consented to share the life you proposed, but I did not believe you were in earnest; I did not think it would last. Besides, how could you have expected me to understand? It was too much; you had no right to ask it of me then. I thought, of course, you would come back to me again, Jack; I waited for that. Can't you understand? But you didn't come back, and I repented of my mistake a thousand times. We all make mistakes, Jack!"
His manhood revolted against being compelled to listen to her confession, her pleading. It was undignified, cowardly. It disgusted him and he hated himself for it, but what could he do?