Of course he'll
stay--thanks, Elizabeth."
The tired drawn parchment face of the Resident became revivified, it
was the face of a happy boy; the grey eyes blued to youth. Inwardly he
murmured: "Elizabeth is wonderful! I knew it; good girl!"
It was a curious breakfast--mentally. Elizabeth was the Elizabeth of
the verandah. Perhaps it was the passionate beating of the pillow the
day before, when she had realised for the first time what Barlow meant
to her, that now cast her into defence; encased her in an armour of
protection; caused her to assume a casualness. She would give worlds
to not have said what she had said the day before, but the Captain must
know that she had been roused by a knowledge of his intimacy with the
Gulab. Just what had occurred did not matter--not in the least; it was
his place to explain it. That was Elizabeth's way--it was her manner
of thought; a subservience of impulse to propriety, to class. In the
light of her feeling when she had lain, wet-eyed, beating the pillow,
she knew that if he had put his arms about her and said just even
stupid words--"I'm sorry, Beth, you know I love you"--she would have
capitulated, perhaps even in the capitulation have said a Bethism: "It
doesn't matter--we'll never mention it again.
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