Part 12 (1/2)

”Would have been?” said Rendel, still amazed. ”Why don't you say 'will be'? Do you mean to say you don't want to go?”

”I don't think _I_ could go,” Rachel said, with a slight surprise in her voice. ”How could I?”

Rendel said nothing, but still looked at her as though finding it difficult to realise her point of view.

”How could I leave my father?” she said, putting into words the thing that seemed to her so absolutely obvious that she had hardly thought it necessary to speak it.

”Do you think you couldn't?” Rendel said slowly.

”Oh, Frank, how would it be possible?” she said. ”We could not leave him alone here, and it would be much, much too far for him to go.”

”Of course. I had not thought of his attempting it,” said Rendel, truthfully enough, with a sinking dread at his heart that perhaps after all the fair prospect he had been gazing upon was going to prove nothing but a mirage.

”You do agree, don't you?” she said, looking at him anxiously. ”You do see?”

”I am trying to see,” Rendel said quietly. For a moment neither spoke.

”Oh, I couldn't,” Rachel said. ”I simply couldn't!” in a heartfelt tone that told of the unalterable conviction that lay behind it. There was another silence. Rendel stood looking straight before him, Rachel watching him timidly. Rendel made as though to speak, then he checked himself.

”Oh, isn't it a pity it was suggested!” Rachel cried involuntarily.

Rendel gave a little laugh. It was deplorable, truly, that such an opportunity should have come to a man who was not going to use it.

”But could not _you_----” she began, then stopped. ”How long would it be for?”

”Oh, about five years, I suppose,” said Rendel, with a sort of aloofness of tone with which people on such occasions consent to diverge for the moment from the main issue.

”Five years,” she repeated. ”That would be too long.”

”Yes, five years seems a long time, I daresay,” said Rendel, ”as one looks on to it.”

”I was wondering,” she said hesitatingly, ”if it wouldn't have been better that you should have gone.”

”I? Without you, do you mean?” Rendel said. ”No, certainly not. That I am quite clear about.”

”Oh, Frank, I should not like it if you did,” she said, looking up at him.

”I need not say that I should not.” There was another silence.

”Should you like it very, very much?” she said.

”Like what?” said Rendel, coming back with an effort.

”Going to Africa.”

There had been a moment when Rendel had told Lady Gore how glad he was that Rachel had no ambitions, as producing the ideal character. No doubt that lack has its advantages--but the world we live in is not, alas, exclusively a world of ideals.

”Yes, I should like it,” he replied quietly. ”If you went too, that is--I should not like it without you.”

”Oh, Frank, it _is_ a pity,” she said, looking up at him wistfully. But there was evidently not in her mind the shadow of a possibility that the question could be decided other than in one way.

”Come, it is getting late,” Rendel said. And they left the room with the outward air of having postponed the decision till the morning. But the decision was not postponed; that Rachel took for granted, and Rendel had made up his mind. This was, after all, not a new sacrifice he was called upon to make: it was part of the same, of that sacrifice which he had recognised that he was willing to make in order to marry Rachel, and which was so much less than that other great and impossible sacrifice of giving her up.