But argue as she might, she was left with the feeling that she had been pitifully weak and was decidedly unworthy of the love which had been offered her. She needed someone in whom to confide—someone to help her straighten out this tangle. Joe could not help, nor Aunt Philomela, nor even her father. She thought of just one man who might understand, and that one man was in the next room talking with her aunt. Even as she thought of him the one man entered and came across to her side. Whereupon she murmured an excuse and started to leave. But Barnes checked her.
“Don’t go,” he pleaded. “You’re worried.”
He had touched her arm just the fraction of a second. She looked towards the door, startled. She felt very uncomfortable now that she was alone with the one man. Instead of clarifying matters, he seemed to complicate them.
“You take Carl’s departure much to heart?” he asked.
“Because I feel very much at fault,” she replied.
She was looking out the window across the rows of bright flowers, across the green fields, to the horizon line. To Barnes she appeared like a painting by Rossetti. With her head uplifted, her eyes half closed, as though in weary confusion, she looked like the Beata Beatrix.
“Because Carl loves you?” he asked suddenly.
She caught her breath. It sounded such a crude, barbaric fact when he expressed it. She looked for some escape. She prayed that he might leave her alone. He stood before her as though barring her way.
“No! No!” she exclaimed. “He is mistaken.”
“I do not think he is mistaken,” he answered quietly.