"Most hopeless, Peter; because death, you see, is so close upon the heels of my love."
"No--my heart. The death of love and the death--of life follow my love. Now I want to pick up the threads of a moment ago. Peter, don't hold my hand. That woman is--staring. You said--you said, you would come away around the world to see me, to help me, possibly, if I were in trouble. You weren't serious."
"On the _Persian Gulf_ that day--that day I told you something of your recent adventures and your apparently miraculous escapes, I intended to ask you----"
"I intended asking you a favor, a most important one, an alternative----"
"Yes; an alternative to that. Tell me truly how much at heart you hate the man at Len Yang. Wait. Don't answer me yet. At heart, do you really hate him, as you pretend, or are you simply bowing down to your vanity, to the pride you seem to take in these quixotic deeds? For one thing, there is very little money in what you are doing. If you should approach these adventures a little differently, perhaps, you might put yourself in a position to be rewarded for the troubles you take, the dangers you risk. I mean that."
"I admit I'm not a money hater," frowned Peter, striving without much success to feel her trend.
"It would be so easy for you to make all the money you need in only a few years by--how shall I say it?--by 'being nice.' Wait! I have not finished. You said I was a special emissary from him. You hit the mark more squarely than you thought. Oh, I admit it! I was sent to Batavia to meet you, to intercept you, and, to be quite frank, to ask you your terms."
"Yes. He has observed you. He can use you, and oh!--how badly he wants you and your boldness and that unconquerable fire of yours! He needs you! He wants you, more than any man he has known! And he will pay you! Name your price! A half million gold a year? Bah! It is a drop to him!"
"Don't," begged Peter in a whisper. "Please--don't--go on."
His face had become almost as white as the tablecloth, and his lips were trembling, ashen.
"God! I put my confidence in you, time after time, and each time you show me treachery, deeper, more hideous, than before. Please don't continue. I'm trying, as hard as I know how, to appreciate your position in this wretched mess--and trying to find some excuse for it. For you! And it's hard. Damned, brutally hard. Let's part! Let's forget! Let's be just memories to each other--Romola!"