“Perfectly true.” She faltered a little. “But”—forcing herself to a defiance that was in reality a species of self-defence—“I fail to see that it concerns you, Blaise.”
“It concerns me in so far as Burke is not the sort of man that a woman can make a friend of. It’s all or nothing with him. And if you don’t intend to give him all, you’d better give him—nothing.”
His glance, grave and steady, met hers, and she knew then, of a certainty, that he had witnessed the scene which had taken place in the rose garden, when Burke had held her in his arms and the flood of his passion had risen and overwhelmed her. He had witnessed that—and had misunderstood it.
She was conscious of a fierce resentment against him. It mattered nothing to her that, in the light of her nonchalant answers to his questions, he was fully justified in the obvious conclusion he had drawn. She did not stop to think whether her anger was reasonable or unreasonable. She was simply furious with him for suspecting her of flirting—odious word!—with Geoffrey Burke. Well, if he chose to think thus of her, let him do so! She would not trouble to explain—to exculpate herself.
She regarded him with stormy eyes.
“Please understand, Blaise, that I want neither your advice nor your criticism. If I choose to make a friend of Geoffrey Burke—or of any other man—I shall do so without asking your permission or approval. What I do, or don’t do, is no business of yours.”
For a moment they faced each other, his eyes, stormy as her own, dark with anger. His hands clenched themselves.
“If I could,” he said hoarsely, “I would make it my business.”
He wheeled round and left the room without another word. Jean stood staring dazedly at the blank panels of the door which had closed behind him. She wanted to laugh... or to cry. To laugh, because with every sullen word he revealed the thing he was so sedulously intent on keeping from her. To cry, because he had taken her pretended indifference at its face value, and so another film of misunderstanding had risen to thicken the veil between them—the veil which he would not, and she, being a woman, could not, draw aside.