“Since we are to be quite candid with each other,” he said, smiling, “I’m not sure.”
“Your candour has—artistic qualities—which make it different from other people’s. At all events, you will be to-morrow: to-morrow you will thank Heaven fasting.”
He looked at her with some of the interest she used to inspire in him before his chains began to gall him.
“Prickly creature!” he said. “Are you quite sure? Is your determination unalterable?”
“I acknowledge your politeness in asking me,” she returned. “It is.”
“Then I suppose I must accept it.” He spoke slowly. “But for the soulagement you suggest I am afraid I must wait longer than to-morrow.”
They walked on in silence, reached the rank edge of the pond, and turned to go back. The afternoon[afternoon] still hung mellow in mid air, and something of its tranquillity seemed to have descended between them. In their joint escape from their mutual burden they experienced a reciprocal good feeling, something like comradeship, not untouched by sentiment. Once or twice he referred to their broken bond, asking her, with the appetite of his egotism, to give him the crystal truth of the reason she had accepted him.
“I accepted my idea of you,” she said simply, “which was not altogether an accurate one. Besides, I think a good deal about—a lot of questions of administration. I thought I would like to have a closer interest, perhaps a hand in them. Such fools of women do.”
After which they talked in a friendly way (it has been noted that Ancram was tolerant) about how essential ambition was to the bearableness of life in India.
“I see that you will be a much more desirable acquaintance,” Rhoda said once, brightly, “now that I am not going to marry you.” And he smiled in somewhat unsatisfied acquiescence.