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‘Here in the west,’ she began, her tone ful, ‘I aes to be based on emotion Love, as you would call it It is the fashion, and it is the expectation But for all that it is not always the case, is it?’

Her eyes were holding Diana’s fixedly

‘You will forgivein a way that you Europeans with your propensity for deht find old-fashioned, but for those who are born into responsibilities greater than the acquisition of their own happiness such a custom may not always be appropriate’

She slance with her hostess

‘Perhaps we are not so unalike, you and I? At soreater thanthat you yourself can understand? So you have also done?’

She patted Diana’s hand again, holding her gaze questioningly as she did so

‘I teased you when you visitedso handsome a husband that surely he must be the most important aspect of your life—m

ore i else But perhaps’ She paused, then went on, glancing around her ‘Perhaps that is not so? You gave me reason to suppose that when you answered me’

Diana’s eyes dropped and she stared into her lap Spoke dully as she replied With heaviness in her voice

‘I thought I was savingin the world I thought—’ she gave a little choke ‘—I thought I would do anything to save it’

She lifted her eyes, met those of the Princess who, perhaps alone of anyone she kneould understand

‘Even ht as wire around her throat ‘So that’s what I did I married to save my house, my home, my inheritance To honour what my father had done for me’

She gave the Princess a sad, painful smile

‘My mother left my father when I was a child, but he chose never to remarry It was for land it is the tradition for sons to inherit fahters—unless there is no son My father kne ave me the sense of security, of continuity, I so desperately needed after ave up his chance of happiness to ensure mine’

She sighed