“There!” Nesta feigned dismay. “Now I have offended you! And I so want us to be good friends. But of course”—quickly—“it is difficult for you to feel friendly towards the wife of Blaise. I can understand that. I suppose”—her head a little tilted to one side like that of an enquiring robin and her eyes fastened on the other’s white face with a merciless, gimlet gaze that filled Jean with helpless rage—“I suppose you loved him very much?”
Jean felt the blood rush into her cheeks and caught a responsive gleam of satisfaction in the other’s half-closed eyes.
“I think that is hardly a subject which can be discussed between us,” she said, with a supreme effort at self-control.
And then, to her unbounded thankfulness, Tucker threw open the door and announced that Mrs. Tormarin’s car was waiting.
This open declaration of hostility on Nesta’s part gave Jean food for reflection. Briefly she recounted the incident to Claire, adding:
“It means I must not go to Staple again. If she intends to adopt that attitude, it would make a situation which is already quite difficult enough hopelessly impossible.”
The two girls were pacing up and down the terrace at Charnwood together when Jean indicated the consequences of Nesta’s visit, and Claire, sensing the pain in her friend’s voice, pressed her arm sympathetically. But she said nothing. What was there to say? Within herself, she felt that Jean’s determination to eschew the Tormarin menage altogether was the only wise one.
“Poor Blaise!” pursued Jean, a slight tremor in her voice. “He has the hardest part to bear. She must make life hideously difficult for him.”
Claire nodded.
“Yes. He is looking very fagged and strained. Horrid little beast!” she added with unusual vehemence. “Why on earth couldn’t she have stayed dead?”