“That is unkind of you, and not polite.”
“We ought to have your aunt here to act as chaperon. They say it’s scarcely wise to leave a man and woman to themselves, and now I recognise it.”
But Rosalie was not far behind in the argument. From cold shivers she began to experience a certain amount of heat.
“I don’t know about a chaperon,” she said. “I thought a chaperon was a woman who looked after a woman, and I should like to know who looks after the men? Chaperons are silly and stupid, and women, if they were honest, would say they wanted to have nothing to do with them. Besides, it was you who lost your temper then. I didn’t a bit. I haven’t yet, only you annoyed me by the way you spoke.”
“I? lost my temper?”
“Yes, of course. You know you did. You think I’ve got a secret, and I haven’t; so if you don’t like, you needn’t be nice to me any more.”
And Mr. Barringcourt laughed. Under that laugh Rosalie shrivelled up like a white butterfly under the breath of ice.
“But I do like,” he answered, still laughing. “You must not quote from Mariana. It is too absurd. And so you have no secret. I can scarcely imagine a woman without one, nor a man.”
The merciless mocking eyes were fixed on her, so that she seemed incapable of moving. There rose within her a terrible weakness, a longing to lean on him, to be guided by his advice, to speak of all those doubts that preyed upon her mind, and state the few plain facts that raised them. Again, as before in the garden, she recognised that he was strong, and she was very, very weak. She looked across at him. There was little of sympathy on his face—much of contempt and ridicule—and Rosalie, sensitive to both, shrank from it and him.
A very awkward pause followed—to her, at least.