Her sudden start robbed him of every shred of confidence. And it astonished Janet herself. The fascination of Claude and the voltaic attraction of Robert had put these two, for her, in a class by themselves. But she had met men who were not half so agreeable to talk to or to look upon as M. St. Hilaire—men whose company was dull or whose personalities she disapproved of and yet whose caresses she would not have wished to repel.
It had been this way ever since their first meeting in Brussels. M. St. Hilaire had befriended her in a time of need, he possessed many mental and material advantages, he was the father of Henriette. But he lacked some one thing needful. When she dreamed her day dreams, she never pictured him; and when he touched her, she never thrilled.
True, in his absence, she thought of him (if she thought of him at all) as precisely the sort of man a girl ought to be able to love. But in his presence she was overwhelmed with the single conviction that to live with him would be more than she could bear. The conviction was absurd, unjust, incomprehensible; yet it was not to be gainsaid.
Sensing her thoughts, M. St. Hilaire was disheartened.
"I hoped I had made amends," he said, in sorrowful allusion to the cause of their rupture in Brussels. "But I see you've never forgiven me."
"Oh, no, no," she cried, with a pang of remorse. "I've forgotten all about that. Please believe me. It isn't that at all. It's—I don't quite know—something tells me that I simply can't live with you as your wife."
He rose, by main force suppressing caustic and resentful comments that leapt to the tip of his tongue. He had one more card to play.
"And you mean to—to go back on Henriette?" he asked, in measured tones.
She came to his side and, affectionately taking his hand, began:
"I'm terribly fond of Henriette—"