And when his clumsy hints of compensation could no
longer be ignored she treated him with a soft indignation, a tender
resentment, that left him soft and tender. She looked at him with
pained eyes and a quiver of the lips. What did he think she was?
And then a little less credibly, did he think she would have given
herself to him if she hadn't been in love with him? Perhaps that
was not altogether true, but at any rate it was altogether true to
her when she said it, and it was manifest that she did not for a
moment intend him to have the cheap consolation of giving her money.
But, and that seemed odd to Benham, she would not believe, just as
Lady Marayne would not believe, that there was not some other woman
in the case. He assured her and she seemed reassured, and then
presently she was back at exactly the same question. Would no woman
ever understand the call of Asia, the pride of duty, the desire for
the world?
One sort of woman perhaps. . . .
It was odd that for the first time now, in the sunshine of
Kensington Gardens, he saw the little gossamer lines that tell that
thirty years and more have passed over a face, a little wrinkling of
the eyelids, a little hardening of the mouth.
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