Jean's face went white.
"I might have known," she said and sought for words that would hurt him most, "that you could not possibly grasp the spiritual significance."
Herrick's face flushed and his eyes were two black slits as he bent across the table.
"You're a fool, Jean, you and Dr. Mary and all the other dead, marble women she has trailing in her train."
It seemed afterwards to Herrick that they stood for hours looking at each other across the table, before Jean turned, and without a word went the length of the studio and closed and locked the bedroom door behind her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In the months that followed there were whole weeks when Herrick despised Jean for her blindness; when he hated her for the calm, filled order of her days; when he wanted to go and lay his head in her lap and be comforted.
What would Jean do if he told her?
She would answer as she would to any cry of distress. In a scientific, impersonal way she would even be happy at her ability to help. For the time he would be her favorite "case." She would probe into his feeling for The Kitten and into The Kitten's and decide what was to be done. When she had analyzed it all, she would ask him what he wanted to do.
What did he want?