Suddenly Brigit's anger flamed up.
"And—I am so insignificant that you are not afraid of me," she cried. "What if he had not got over it? What if he loved me as much—more than I love him?"
Félicité smiled serenely and sweetly.
"No, I know him. I saw it come—and go. But do not be angry and proud, my dear. I wish only to help you."
And Brigit, touched by her kindness as well as terrified by her own indiscretion, sat down by her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
When Joyselle came in at eight o'clock he went straight to his room to dress. He was still very angry, but his anger was less poignant than his sense of helpless defeat. Brigit's attitude was absolutely incomprehensible to him, and hurt him in an almost unbearable degree. That she should defy him, grow as angry as he himself, he had already learned was not impossible; but the cruel hardness of her face as she had sent him away had shocked him more than anything in his whole experience.
He was a shrewd man, and his love for her had never blinded him as to her faults; often he had corrected her for unfilial behaviour, for a too sharp word, for selfishness. But the one quality which to a strong and tender man is unendurable in the woman he loves, cruelty, he had never before realised in the girl, and his discovery that it lay in her to hurt him as she had done, had nearly broken his heart.
For hours he had walked rapidly through the streets, seeing no one, avoiding being knocked down by a kind of subconscious attention and alertness of mind, his brain struggling desperately with its problem.