His blaze of wrath, his low passionate tone, startled her to silence.  He had spoken so seldom of his mother since the first occasion, that—­although she knew—­she had far from plumbed the height and depth of his worship.  And instinctively she thought, ’I should have been jealous into the bargain.’

But Roy had room just then for one consideration only.

“Here have I been coming to her house on sufferance ... polluting her precious drawing-room, while she’s been avoiding me as if I was a leper, all because I’m the son of a sainted woman, whose shoe she wouldn’t have been worthy ... oh, I beg your pardon——­” He checked himself sharply.  “After all—­she’s your mother.”

Rose felt her cheeks growing uncomfortably warm.  “I did warn you, in Lahore, some people felt ... that way.”

“Well, I never dreamed they would behave that way.  It’s not as if I’d been born and reared in India and might claim relations in her compound.”

“My dear—­one can’t make her see the difference,” Rose urged desperately.

“Well, I won’t stay any longer in her house.  I won’t eat her food——­”

He pushed aside his plate so impatiently that Rose felt almost angry.  But she saw his hand tremble; and covered it with her own.

“Roy—­my dear!  You’re ill; and you’re being rather exaggerated over things——­”

“Well, you put me in such a false position.  You ought to have told me.”

She winced at that and let fall her hand.

“That’s all one’s reward for trying to save you from jars when you were knocked up and unhappy.  And I told you ...  I defied her ...  I ...  I would have married you....”

He looked at her, and his heart contracted sharply.

“Poor Rose—­poor darling!” He was his normal self again.  “What a beast of a time you must have had!  But—­how did you propose to accomplish it——?”

She told him, haltingly, of the Kashmir plan; and he listened, half incredulous, leaning back again; thinking:  “She’s plucky; but still, all she troubled about really was to save her face.”

And she, noting his impatient frown, was thinking:  “He’s like a sensitive plant charged with gunpowder.  Is it the touchiness of——?”

“I’m afraid I’d have kicked at that.”  His voice broke in upon her thought.  “Such a hole-and-corner business.  Hardly fair on my father....”

“Well, there’s no question of it now,” she reminded him, with a touch of asperity.  “I’ve told you—­the whole thing’s defunct.  Later—­we’ll be glad, perhaps, that I discovered in time that part of me could not be coerced—­by the other part, which still wants you as much as ever.  We should have been landed in disaster—­soon or late.  Better soon—­before the roots have struck too deep.  But you’re so furiously angry with the reason—­that you seem almost to forget ... the fact.”

His eyes brooded on her, full of pain and the old, half-unwilling infatuation.  He could not so hurt her pride as to confess that their discovery had been mutual.  Let her glean what satisfaction she could from having taken the lead—­first and last.  Part of him, also, still wanted her; though in the depths, he felt a glimmer of relief that the thing was done—­and by her.