"Damned lot of hypocrites, all my people are!" remarked Everest in answer; and then he thought of John Marlow and his letter of "profound sorrow." "I suppose they are all like that, don't let's bother about them! Give me some tea."
The tea had been brought in, and Regina poured it out for him with loving care over every detail. He took it from her, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, rejoicing in being together again after some hours' separation.
Then Everest leant forward and said very earnestly:
"I think, my darling, you had better marry me now, before we start on the Egyptian tour. I want to take you up the Nile this winter, and show you the Soudan. I was arranging about it to-day, my own dahabeeyah is there, and I have given orders it's all to be refitted for you, by September.... Then, later, we'll go into camp together, and do a little lion-hunting, if you like.... But, you see, it's all rather risky work, and I would like to know that we were married, and it was all straight and square, so that if there were any accident to me you would be in a good position."
"If there were any accident to you, nothing would matter any more at all," returned Regina, in a low tone; and Everest came over and knelt by her low chair, putting both arms round the supple waist, that felt so warm and soft in its smooth velvet casing.
"Dear little girl, you are much too good to me. Nobody has ever loved me as you do. I bought a rifle and a pistol for you to-day, and I am having a gold plate with 'My Darling' engraved on it, put on both, because you said you loved to hear me say that."
"But, if we do go to the Soudan, you won't ask me to kill anything, will you?" she asked, a look of startled apprehension in her eyes. "As far as I am concerned, the animals are all my personal friends and relations. They are one family with human beings. I do not think there is any real difference. Life is uniform everywhere. Only in some forms it has greater power and capacity than in others."
"I shall not ask you to kill anything," returned Everest, smiling. "But you must learn to shoot well, both with a pistol and rifle. It's quite as necessary, more necessary, for a woman than a man. And you will be a splendid shot, with your eye, that can see the deviation of a hair in your painting. That feeling for the straight line must mean good shooting. And our marriage? Come, now...."
"If you continue perfectly happy with me, and other things ... are just as we wish ... then I will marry you at Khartoum," replied Regina very softly, a beautiful, crimson flush passing over her face, "but not before...." And then she kissed him, and let her white fingers play with his thick and glorious black hair, and Everest forgot what they were talking about, forgot everything, except that where she was was paradise, though Miss Lanark, as we know, had thought of another place in connection with her brother's flat.
Late that same night, lying in her white and silver bed, Regina thought very seriously over things, her mind being very far from sleep. As from the first, she only had the single desire to do the best for Everest; and for many days now the question had haunted her mind: what if Nature, by some evil fate, denied her after all the power of maternity? She had heard and read that passionate, excitable natures gifted mentally, and sensitive in mind and brain, were not the best reproducers of their race. Nature cares for the type, the rule, and to exceptional beings she denies sometimes the rights she allows to those who are stolid, faithful models of the average.