“I understand.  You needn’t tell me.”

“Mother doesn’t.  I wish you’d make her see it.”

“I’ll try.  But it’s all right, Jerrold.  I won’t go.”

“Of course you’ll go.  Only you won’t think me a brute if I don’t take you out with me?”

“I’m not going out with you.  In fact, I don’t think I’m going at all.  I only wanted to because of going out together and because of the chance of seeing you when you got leave.  I only thought of the heavenly times we might have had.”

“Don’t—­don’t, Anne.”

“No, I won’t.  After all, I shouldn’t care a rap about Ambala if you weren’t there.  And you may be stationed miles away.  I’d rather go back to Ilford and do farming.  Ever so much rather.  India would really have wasted a lot of time.”

“Oh, Anne, I’ve spoilt all your pleasure.”

“No, you haven’t.  There isn’t any pleasure to spoil—­now.”

“What a brute—­what a cad you must think me.”

“I don’t, Jerry.  It’s not your fault.  Things have just happened.  And you see, I understand.  I felt the same about Auntie Adeline after Mother died.  I didn’t want to see her because she reminded me—­and yet, really, I loved her all the time.”

“You won’t go back on me for it?”

“I wouldn’t go back on you whatever you did.  And you mustn’t keep on thinking I want to go to India.  I don’t care a rap about India itself.  I hate Anglo-Indians and I simply loathe hot places.  And Daddy doesn’t want me out there, really.  I shall be much happier on my farm.  And it’ll save a lot of expense, too.  Just think what my outfit and passage would have cost.”

“You wouldn’t have cared what it cost if—­”

“There isn’t any if.  I’m not lying, really.”  Not lying.  Not lying.  She would have given up more than India to save Jerrold that pang of memory.  Only, when it was all over and he had sailed without her, she realized in one wounding flash that what she had given up was Jerrold himself.

V

ELIOT AND ANNE

i

Anne did not go back to her Ilford farm at once.  Adeline had made that impossible.

At the prospect of Anne’s going her resentment died down as suddenly as it had risen.  She forgot that Anne had taken her sons’ affection and her place beside her husband’s deathbed.  And though she couldn’t help feeling rather glad that Jerrold had gone to India without Anne, she was sorry for her.  She loved her and she meant to keep her.  She said she simply could not bear it if Anne left her, and was it the time to choose when she wanted her as she had never wanted her before?  She had nobody to turn to, as Anne knew.  Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams and people were all very well; but they were outsiders.

“It’s the inside people that I want now, Anne.  You’re deep inside, dear.”

Yes, of course she had relations.  But relations were no use.  They were all wrapped up in their own tiresome affairs, and there wasn’t one of them she cared for as she cared for Anne.