"Perhaps—at one time—you have loved this Burley?" he asked, nursing the suspicion.
"A beast like that? Never!"
He moved his chair very closely to hers.
"Just Monsieur Fontaine?"
"You don't expect me to go into details?" she said, coloring deeply.
"No, no, my dear. But—what has been, can be. Is it not so?"
"I don't know what you mean."
He didn't quite know himself. Being in no condition to reason clearly, he had leaped rashly to the conclusion that she had wished him to learn of her love affair as an indirect way of encouraging him.
Janet could not know his thoughts precisely, but she had an inkling. She wondered that she could have been so blind as not to have seen that his studied chivalry towards women covered a strongly sensual nature.
Even then, she was not insensible to the fact that Anton St. Hilaire was a pleasing man to look upon. His bright blue eyes and clear, ruddy complexion testified to a sound physique. Perhaps he was a trifle too robust. But there was a feminine comeliness about him which was a foil to his surging virility. In many women, the first quality calmed the piquant fears which the second quality excited.