“You needn’t be afraid,” remarked Burke. “She’ll settle down in a few minutes. It’s only a ‘stable ahead’ feeling she’s suffering from. There’s not an ounce of vice in her composition.”
“I’m not afraid,” replied Jean composedly.
She did not tell him why. But within herself she knew that no woman would ever be afraid with Geoffrey Burke. Afraid of him, possibly, but never afraid that he would not be entire master of any situation wherein physical strength and courage were the paramount necessities.
She reflected a little grimly to herself that it was this very forcefulness which gave the man his unquestionable power of attraction. There is always a certain fascination in sheer, ruthless strength—a savour of magnificence about it, something tentatively heroic, which appeals irresistibly to that primitive instinct somewhere hidden in the temperamental make-up of even the most ultra-twentieth-century feminine product.
And Jean was quite aware that she herself was not altogether proof against the attraction of Burke’s dynamic virility.
There was another kind of strength which appealed to her far more. She knew this, too. The still, quiet force that was Tormarin’s—deep, and unfathomable, and silent, of the spirit as well as of the body. Contrasted with the savage power she recognised in Burke, it was like the fine, tempered steel of a rapier compared with a heavy bludgeon.
“A penny for your thoughts!”
Jean came out of her reverie with a start. She smiled.
“Don’t get conceited. I was thinking about you.”
“Nice thoughts, I hope, then?” suggested Burke. “It’s better”—audaciously—“to think well of your future husband.”