Mabel thought that this threat sounded extremely telling, but to Fitz, who had declined excellent posts in other parts of the province, rather than quit the frontier which grows to have such a strange fascination for every Khemistan man, it was less alarming.
“Don’t trouble to get protection from the Major, Miss North. I assure you it won’t be necessary.”
“But am I to be kept in perpetual dread of having to discuss this—this unpleasant subject? I think it is very unkind of you,” said Mabel, with tears in her eyes, “for I had come to like you so much as a friend, and you were always so useful, and now——”
“And now I intend to be quite as useful, and just as much your friend, I hope, as before. Let us make a bargain. You may feel quite safe. I won’t attempt to approach the unpleasant subject without your leave.”
Mabel looked at him in astonishment. “But I should never give you leave, you know,” she said.
“As you please. Then the subject will never be renewed. I am content to wait.”
“But what is the good of waiting when I have told you——”
“Come, I don’t think you can deny me that consolation, can you, when you have the whole thing in your own hands? Is it a bargain?”
“It doesn’t seem fair to let you go on hoping——”
“That’s my own lookout,” he said again. “If your friend is always at hand when you want him, surely he may be allowed to nurse his foolish hopes in private—provided that he never exhibits them?”