“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, pulling her gloves from her long hands.
Her quickly observant eyes swept him. She walked to him and stood near. The frosty air was still about her and her face was lightly stung to color with exercise. Her wild eyes were startling under the brim of her smart, tailored hat.
Jasper put a hand on either of her shoulders and bent his head before her. “My poor child—if I’d only left you in your kitchen!”
Joan tightened her lips, then smiled uncertainly. “You’ve got me scared,” she said, stepped back and sat down, her hands in her muff. “What is it?” she asked; and in that moment of waiting she was sickly reminded of other moments in her life—of the nearing sound of Pierre’s webs on a crystal winter night, of the sound of Prosper’s footsteps going away from her up the mountain trail on a swordlike, autumn morning.
Jasper began his pacing. Feeling carefully for delicate phrases, he told her Betty’s accusation, of her purpose.
Joan took off her hat, pushed back the hair from her forehead; then, as he came to the end, she looked up at him. Her pupils were larger than usual and the light, frosty tint of rose had left her cheeks.
“Would you mind telling me that again?” she asked.
He did so, more explicitly.
“She thinks, Betty thinks, that I have been—that we have been—? She thinks that of me? No wonder she hasn’t been coming to see me!” She stopped, staring blindly at him; then, “You must tell her it isn’t true,” she said pitifully, and the quiver of her lips hurt him.
“Ah! But she doesn’t want to believe that, my dear. She wants to believe the worst. It is her opportunity to escape me.”