Erminie stops her sister-in-law with a deprecating gesture. She is staunch to Philip, and knows how it would pain him to hear these words.
"I was fond of her," she says simply. "Let us talk of something else."
"I wish we could go up to the source of the Irrawaddy River, where no white man has ever been," says Eleanor, laying her hand confidingly in Carol's. "I should not be afraid with you, dear—such a traveller, and knowing the country so well. How many years is it since you were last in India?"
"Over seven. How did I drag through them without you?" he replies tenderly.
"We had a glorious voyage, didn't we? and everybody was so nice to us. I remember, Carol, how frightened I felt when first you suggested this long journey, and promised to take me north of Burmah to this strange, uncivilised village, where I should have to eat nothing but rice, or shoot my own game. Of course you had been here before, and though it is so wild and out of the way, there are still some white people to remind us we are not all savages."
"My dear, you must not call them 'savages,'" he says smiling. "They are really very nice, though a trifle odd and original; but that is what you like, I believe."
"Oh! yes. I am quite in love with my black servants. I think they are ever so much more picturesque and pleasant than my Richmond acquaintances. They look on me as a white angel, which no one would have done at home," with a smile at her quiet humour.
Eleanor's feelings by now are blunted to a certain extent, and she frequently jests on the wholesome horror with which her English friends must now regard "that reckless Mrs. Roche!"
Yet there are times when the thought of her sin rises like a dark thundercloud over the sunshine of this life of love.