“Poor darling!  You’ve just missed Mother!” She condoled with him, smiling sidelong under her lashes; and she almost blessed her maternal enemy for bringing back the familiar gleam into his eyes.

“Bad luck!  Ought we to go in again?”

“Gracious, no.  She’s only tearing home to change for an early dinner at Penshurst and the theatre.  Anyway, please note, you’re immune from the formalities.  We’re going to have a peaceful time, quite independent of Simla rushings.  Just ourselves to ourselves.”

“Good.”

It was an asset with men—­second only to her beauty—­this gift for creating a restful atmosphere.

Her nook, in an angle above the narrow path, was a grassy bank, looking across crumpled ranges—­velvet-soft in the level light—­to the still purity of the snows.

“Rather nice, isn’t it?” she said.  “I’m not given to mooning out of doors; but I’ve spent several evenings here ... lately.”

“It’s sanctuary,” Roy murmured; but his sigh was tinged with apprehension.  Flinging off his hat, he reclined full length on the gentle slope, hands under his head, and let the healing rays flow into the deeps of his troubled being.

Rose sat upright beside him, her fingers locked loosely round one raised knee.  She was troubled too, and quite at a loss how to begin.

“So you’ve not been going out much?” he asked, after a prolonged pause.

“No—­how could I—­with you, so unhappy, down there—­and....”—­She deliberately met his eyes; and the look in them impelled her to ask:  “What is it, Roy—­lurking in your mind?”

“Am I—­to be frank?”

She shivered.  “It sounds—­rather chilly.  But I suppose we’d better take our cold plunge—­and get it over!”

“Well”—­he hesitated palpably.  “It was only a natural wonder—­if you care ... all that ... now he’s gone, how could you deliberately hurt him so—­while he lived?”

She drew in her lip.  It was going to be more unsteadying than she had foreseen.

“How can a woman explain to a man the simple fact that she is incurably—­perhaps unforgivably—­a woman?”

“I don’t know.  I hoped you could—­up to a point,” said Roy, looking away to the snows and remembering, suddenly, that was where he ought to be now—­with Lance—­always Lance:  no other thought or presence seemed vital to him, these days.  Yet Rose remained beautiful and desirable—­and clearly she loved him.

“It doesn’t make things easier, you know,” she was saying, in her cool, low voice, “to feel you are patently regretting events that, unhappily, did hurt—­him; but also—­gave me to you....”

Her beauty, her evident pain, penetrated the settled misery that enveloped him like an atmosphere.

“Darling—­forgive me!” He reached out, pulling her hands apart, and his fingers closed hard on hers.  “I’m only trying—­clumsily—­to understand....”

“And goodness knows I’m willing to help you,” she sighed, returning his pressure.  “But—­I’m afraid the little I can say for myself won’t do much to regild my halo—­if there’s any of it left!  I gather you aren’t very well up in women, or girls, Roy?”