"He doesn't dream of that sort of thing now. We shall always be friends, but never anything more."
"My dearest little foolish one, there are moments when I would gladly take you by the shoulders and shake you!" cried Lady Cinnamond in vehement Spanish. Catching her daughter's astonished eye, she calmed herself forcibly and spoke in English. "If you had seen that poor young man's face as you left the room, as I did, Honour, you would know what nonsense you are talking. Refuse him if you must, but don't keep him in torture."
"Dear mamma, you don't understand. Things are different now——"
"From what they were when I was a girl? I agree! And I prefer them as they used to be. There were your father and I, and his friends and my family trying to prevent our marriage. There were other men in the world, doubtless, but for me they simply did not exist. And we married, and people considered us very romantic. But to be romantic now, it seems, you must persist in remaining unmarried for the sake of a very worthy young man for whom you cared not a straw when he was alive!"
"I can't explain it, mamma. But one has one's feelings——"
"Quite so. And the poor Mr Gerrard has his also. But those you do not consider."
Gerrard's ill-used feelings were still unhealed a week later, when Sir Edmund Antony, learning of the imminent danger of war with Agpur, descended from the hills like a whirlwind to take command of the situation, and incidentally to upset as many as possible of his brother's arrangements. Having learnt all that Gerrard could tell him of the circumstances, he took occasion, while his secretary was at work on the fresh orders he had hastily drafted to Nisbet, the political officer in charge of the negociations with Sher Singh, to speak on more personal matters.
"I am sorry to see this continued depression of spirits on your part, Gerrard. The sin of despondency is one to which I myself am so conspicuously prone that I dare lose no opportunity of warning others against it."
"Forgive me, sir. Our conversation has led me to recall things so vividly——"
"True. But you feel, as you have assured me, that our friend Charteris fell in a good cause?"