"We seem to be queerly at cross purposes. I can't pretend to follow the
turnings and doublings of your ingenious mind. I gather there is
something you want of me. To be plain, then, what is it?"
"That--that you shouldn't desert me--desert us--in this crisis. You have
never deserted me before--never since I can first remember."
"I desert you--good Lord!" Carteret exclaimed, his hands dropping at his
sides with an odd sort of helplessness.
"Ah! that's asking too much, I suppose," she said. "I'm selfish even to
think of it. Yet how can I do otherwise? Don't you understand how all
difficulties would vanish, and how beautifully simple and easy everything
would be if you coached me--if you, dear Colonel Sahib, went with us?"
The man with the blue eyes looked down at the tiger skin again, his
countenance strained and blanched.
More than ever did he find her humour baffling. Not once nor twice had
he, putting force upon himself, resisted the temptation to woo
her--witness his retirement from St.
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