Burke fitted the key into the lock of the door and turned it sulkily.
“You prim little thing! I was only teasing you,” he said. “Do you mean you’re really as frightened as all that of—what people may say? I thought you were above minding the gossip of ill-natured scandal-mongers.”
Jean grasped eagerly at the excuse. It would serve to hide the real motive of her impulsive action.
“No woman can afford to ignore scandal,” she answered quickly. “After all, a woman’s happiness depends mostly on her reputation.”
Burke’s eyes narrowed suddenly. He looked at her speculatively, as though her words had suggested a new train of thought, but he made no comment. Somewhat abstractedly he opened the door and allowed her to pass out and down the stairs. Outside the door of the inn they found the mare and dog-cart in charge of an ostler.
“The mare’s foot’s rather badly torn, sir,” volunteered the man, “but the blacksmith thinks she’ll travel all right. Far to go, sir?”
“Nine or ten miles,” responded Burke laconically.
He was curiously silent on the way home. It was as though the chain of reasoning started by Jean’s comment on the relation scandal bears to a woman’s happiness still absorbed him. His brows were knit together morosely.
Jean supposed he was probably reproaching himself for his conduct that afternoon. After all, she reflected, he was normally a man of decent instincts, and though the flood-tide of his passion had swept him into taking advantage of the circumstances which had flung them together in the solitude of the little inn, he would be the first to agree, when in a less lawless frame of mind, that his conduct had been unpardonable. Although, even from that, one could not promise that he would not be equally culpable another time!
Blaise had proved painfully correct in his estimate of the dangers attaching to unexploded bombs. Jean admitted it to herself ruefully. And she was honest enough also to admit that, with his warning ringing in her ears and with the memory of what had happened in the rose garden to illumine it, she herself was not altogether clear of blame for the incidents of the afternoon.