“You are an adept, my dear, in holding a man at arm’s length, or drawing him nearer as you please!”
Anne’s eyes were charged with anger.
“Blanche!”
“Can you deny it? Every now and then you land yourself in a scrape, as with that poor young fellow. Anne, tell me”—with a change of voice she leaned forward curiously—“if he had lived, what would you have done?”
Anne glanced at her, and did not at first answer. She lay back in the chair, her dark head resting against the cushion, the flicker of the fire catching a diamond cluster which nestled in her hair. Presently she said slowly—
“I don’t know. I believe he might have swept me into marrying him.”
“Is that the secret?”
“I feel like Samson—as foolish perhaps in breathing it—but the man who marries me must do it quickly, give me no time to find out that I hate him, or to change my mind. If I see him hesitate, he is lost.”
“You want a stronger will than your own?” Mrs Martyn said in surprise. “What a dangerous wish!”
“I want my eyes bandaged, like a shying horse,” said Anne, smiling at her own simile. “Then I might take the leap. Otherwise I see too much, and imagination refuses to trot along meekly gazing at the one side of the subject which is presented to me.”