"Don't think of it," she said simply. "For the present it is out of the question."
She disengaged herself from his clasp and sank into an arm-chair, her handkerchief pressed to her lips. She was white and trembling, her limbs hardly seemed able to support her.
It was quite possible their marriage would never be now, but that was not oppressing her, the iron fetters of a legal tie that bound him unwilling, unloving, unhappy to her, what would they be to her, who longed after his love and desire and pleasure in her? If these were hers, she wanted nothing else, if they were not hers, nothing else would console her.
Everest stood by the bed, mechanically winding up his watch.
"I know you are sorry at their joining us," he said, after a minute. "But I think if I had absolutely refused, it would have been such a slight to Sybil she would never have forgiven either of us. She is my next neighbour, our lands touch each other, and it would be a pity, for your sake, to have her as an enemy."
"I am only afraid at the end of our camping together she will be more of an enemy than you would make her now by refusing to take her."
"Why should you think so?" he answered, looking over to her.
Regina was silent. It did not seem wise to tell him that Sybil was doing all merely to win him for herself, and that nothing short of that would content her, and that her failure would inevitably embitter her for life. The incense to a man's vanity is so often in itself such an attraction towards a woman.
Perhaps the camping might be short; Sybil might find it impossible to stand the rough life; anything might occur to break it up. It could do no good in any case for her to put before Everest's eyes in glowing colour this girl's passion for himself.
"It's difficult to say exactly, but you know how people generally disagree and all grow to hate each other on these expeditions."