"I will send Nanna if I want you. Please go." As Honour still hesitated, her voice rose higher. "Go, go! I don't want you here. You never appreciated my dear Charley." "Go, missy, go!" entreated the old woman. "Missus not know what she done say." But Honour was too deeply hurt. "Oh, Marian, how can you say such a thing? Why, if I had not liked him for himself, I should have loved him because he was so fond of you, dear fellow!" "You said to mamma that he was so very ordinary. I heard you through the _chiks_," persisted Marian, holding her with accusing eyes. "I didn't mean you to hear. How could I tell you were there? And I learned to know him better afterwards--how good and kind he was." Honour defended herself desperately. "It was not my hearing you, but your saying it, that mattered. I could laugh at it at the time, knowing what he really was, but now--I can't bear to have you in the room with me, to-night, at any rate, when you misjudged him so." "Oh, Marian, how can you be so unkind? If I was in trouble, I would not keep you away." "You would not be in this kind of trouble. You couldn't be. It isn't in you." Marian hurled her shafts deliberately. "You don't understand what it is to care for any one as I care for Charley, and I believe you never will. You can let two men go on making love to you at once for more than a year, because you can't make up your mind which of them you like best." "Is that my fault? I don't like either of them in that way." "No, but you like knowing that they think of you, and care for you, and watch for the least crumb of kindness you are willing to throw them. When you thought poor Charteris was dead, you luxuriated in misery with that very foolish young Gerrard, who ought to have given you the choice of taking him or leaving him there and then, and when Charteris came back, you snubbed him. And if Gerrard should be killed now, in trying to save my dear Charley, I suppose you and Charteris would mingle your tears over him. No, Charteris has more sense. He won't let himself be treated----" Honour's eyes were bright. "Oh, do you mean that Mr Gerrard is helping Mr Charteris? Sir Edmund did not mention him." "They are co-operating, Lady Antony told me--making forced marches in the hot weather, to avenge Charley if they can't save him. But you don't care--or if you do, it's only because you like to think you can be an inspiration to them without giving anything in return. You don't want to marry either of them, but you won't break with them so long as they are willing to dangle about you." "I don't want to marry either of them, it is true, but if they are willing to be my friends still, why should I break with them, as you call it?"