Did she know, or was she guessing or bluffing?
It hurt him, hurt him inconceivably to think that she might have deceived him thus; might have broken the wrong bottle, and then deliberately have kept him in darkness with the very remedy at hand. That would seem the refinement of cruelty.
But he must be fair. She was then fighting, fighting with all her power against odds, for her sworn duty. Deceit was her natural weapon. And at that time such deceit seemed very likely to win for her her point. No, he could not blame her there; he could not consistently even feel hurt. The few moments' reasoning brought him to the point where he did not feel hurt. After a little he even admired the quickness of wit.
The instinctive depression vanished before this reasoning. He suddenly became light-hearted.
But immediately the dark mood returned. Granted all this; how about the last two days? Before that it might well be that her sense of duty to her country, her firmness of spirit, her honour itself would impel her to cling to the last hope of gaining her end. Until his influence over M'tela was quite assured, Winkleman's arrival would probably turn the scale. She had not prevented Kingozi's arriving before the Bavarian; but she might hold the Englishman comparatively powerless. That was understandable. Kingozi felt he might even love her the more for this evidence of a faithful spirit. But the last few days! It must have become evident to her that her cause was lost; that M'tela's friendship had been gained for the English. If she had cared for him the least in the world would not she have hastened to produce the pilocarpin for his relief? What could she hope to gain by concealing it? And then the other words insisted on his recollection, bitter words--when, first blinded, he had asked her to read the labels on the bottle that would have given him sight. "Why should I do this for you? You have treated me as a man treats his dog, his horse, his servant, his child--not as a man treats a woman!" What real reason--besides his hopes--had he for thinking she did not still hate him, or at least remain indifferent to him? So indifferent that even after her chance had passed she still neglected to inform him that the pilocarpin was not destroyed after all.