“I know why she did it. Because she thought I had taken you away from her.”
“She can’t have been jealous of you.”
“Women are always jealous of a man’s men friends. They know his feeling can be just as strong for them without being weakened by sex. And they hate that— Now, a feeling fortified by sex—ah! but that doesn’t happen.”
“That,” said René, “is exactly what has happened.”
“Eh? To you?”
René nodded, and he told Kilner something of the walk in the west wind, the meeting with Cathleen, the deliverance it had brought to both of them.
“Does she know? Ann, I mean.”
“No. I haven’t seen her.”
“She must have felt it. Poor little devil! No, I’ll not see her. It’s between you two—my rotten picture, Ann’s rotten little dream of happiness, both destroyed. You look like a destroyer, my friend. It’s in your eyes, your gestures, and movements. Absolute purpose, absolute desire. There’s nothing else worth having.”