Edwina: "Where did the time go? I never notice it when I am with you."
Nehru: "I count every second. Very precious. What will you say to Dicky?"
Edwina: "I'll say I was with you—talking. He wants us to be close."
Nehru: "I feel that too, but why?"
Edwina: "Well, there's one person in the world who explains something so difficult. He stands before me."
Nehru: "Really, the mind of an Anglo-German aristocrat."
Edwina: "Even that...."
Nehru: "Well, there's the deep answer and the shallow answer."
Edwina: "Have the shallow one first.
Nehru: "You won't mind if it's indelicate?"
Edwina: "Guide's honour."
Nehru: "After being married for 20 and more years, Dicky doesn't want you any more in that compelling way."
Edwina: "Seems a very shallow answer to me. And the deep reason?"
Nehru: "It's because he understands that friendship's rare and that we've found it."
Edwina: "And he doesn't want to disrupt it with jealousy or whatever."
Nehru: "No, no, he knows that we have found it and...he wants to be a part of it. He wants it to be the three of us. And he's willing to...it's difficult...it's not a sharing...."
Edwina: "No, no, you're right. He has the deepest admiration for you. You see you've had so much more than he's ever had. He has power, but you have the love of millions, and he wants to feel there's something, something very deep between you and him too. He can never bring himself to say it."
Nehru: "I know, he's an Englishman."
Edwina: "And the only way he knows is to lend me to you."
Nehru (stroking her face): "I understand."
Edwina: "Too well, perhaps." History follows. Mountbatten has a bit of a complex, Edwina says, that "he's the King's cousin, and that's why we got the job". But, she adds, "If Congress were to invite him to..."
Nehru completes it: "...were to invite him to become India's governor-general, I think it will be a great honour for us. And it will please Bapu."