“It’s not a question of conscientious scruples; keeping my word, not betraying a confidence; anything like that.  A year ago if she’d made such a request I’d have paid no attention to it.  I’d have taken the responsibility of acting against her wishes, for her own good, if I happened to see it that way, without any hesitation at all.  But Rose has shown herself so much bigger and stronger a person than I, and she’s done a thing that would have been so splendidly beyond my courage to do that there’s no question of my interfering.  She’s entitled to make her own decisions.  So,” she went on with a little difficulty, “I shan’t betray her confidence nor disregard her instructions.  But there’s one thing I can do, one thing I can tell you, because it’s my confidence, not hers.”

The very obvious fact that her confidences were not of great moment to him, the way he sat there beside her in a glum abstraction through the rather long silence that followed her preface, made it easier for her to go on.

“You see,” she said at last, “I’d always regarded Rose as a spoiled child.  I’d loved her a lot, of course; but I’d despised her a little.  At least I’d tried to, because I was jealous of her; of the big simple easy way she had—­of making people love her.  All the hard things came to me, I felt, and all the easy ones to her.  And on the day I came to tell her about mother, and how we had to move out here—­well, I was feeling sorrier for myself than usual.  If you’ll remember when that was and what her condition was (I didn’t know about it then and neither did she) you’ll understand my having found her terribly blue and unhappy.  She talked discontentedly about her—­failure with you and how she seemed to be nothing to you except ...  Well, she said she envied me.  And that, as I was feeling just then, was too much for me.  I lashed out at her; told her a lot of things she’d never known—­about how we’d lived, and so on; things I’d done for her.  I said she’d got my life to live as well as her own, and that if she failed with it I’d never forgive her.  She made me a promise that she wouldn’t, no matter how hard she had to fight for it.”

“She spoke to me once of a promise,” Rodney said dully, “but of course I didn’t know what she meant.”

Portia got to her feet.  “I can’t leave mother for very long,” she said, “and I’ve some little errands at the shops before I can go back.  So ...”

“I see,” he said.  “I mustn’t detain you any longer.  I don’t know, anyhow, that there’s anything more to say.”

“I’m sorry I can’t—­help you.  You’re entitled to—­hate me, I think.  Because it all goes back to that.  I’ve been glad of a chance to tell you.  And that makes me all the sorrier that I can’t in any way make it up to you.  But you see—­don’t you—­how it is?”

“Yes,” he said.  “I see.  I suppose, if it came to hating, that you’re entitled to hate me.  But there’ll be no great satisfaction in that, I guess, for either of us.”  He held out his hand to her and with a painful sort of shy stiffness, she grasped it.  “If Rose changes her instructions, or if you change your mind as to your duty under them, you’ll let me know?”