This was the first time she had succeeded in seeing Victor alone during all the five days of his stay. Unobtrusively but effectively he had avoided her, shutting himself, when he was not in the sick-room, in his own room, under the pretext of fatigue or correspondence. And she had not submitted to this without repeated efforts to foil his intentions.
Again and again she had made little plans to catch him alone, but she had invariably failed, and as the days passed and she realised his strength of determination, a dull, slow fire of anger had begun to burn in her.
Théo, who had been down twice, had found her manner very unsatisfactory; she was strikingly different from what she had been in Falaise, and the young man was puzzled and hurt. While Tommy was still very ill he had borne with her change of mood with great patience, but the time was coming when he must demand an explanation. All this she felt and resented.
She looked, as she stood by the rose-bush, very tired, and older than her years, but she looked remarkably handsome; pallor and heavy eyelids did not disfigure her as they do most women.
Joyselle took out his silver box and made a cigarette.
"He was talking to me about it," he went on, disregarding the final quality of her negative. "And I find it very good. It is that Tommy should live much with—you—when you are married. Your mother does not know how to bring him up; he is delicate and high-strung, and Théo is very fond of him."
"I am not going to marry Théo!" she burst out, exasperated beyond endurance.
He looked up. "Are you mad?" he asked quietly.
"No. But—you seem to be trying to make me mad. I can't understand you, Victor."
"Can't you, Brigit? I should think it was very easy. You remember what we agreed at Falaise? That——"