With one of her sudden, birdlike dives, she touched the picture of Virginia Denbigh on the mantel. In spite of himself, Daniel started violently and colored. An impulse, as sudden and uncontrollable as her movement, made him spring to his feet. He wanted to snatch the picture from her hand; but he restrained himself, lifted his pipe from the table, and knocked the tobacco out into his father’s ash-tray.
“Why do you think so?” he asked her quietly, beginning to refill the pipe.
She laughed, but he saw that the hand which held Virginia’s picture was trembling. She did not answer him in words, but turned and looked at him over her shoulder, her dark eyes glowing in a face that seemed colorless except for the scarlet lips. Daniel, aware of the look, avoided it, a sudden fear in his heart. Something, something subtle and inexplicable, moved him. With an effort of self-control—greater than he knew—he took the picture of Virginia out of her hands and replaced it on the shelf.
“Why do you think that about it?” he asked.
She laughed.
“I know it! I know the kind—jeune fille à marier! Whenever your mother looks at me in here, she looks at that picture and sighs. And your father stares at it and stares at me—comparing us!” She laughed again, a little wildly. “Mon Dieu, I know!”
Daniel frowned.
“You let your imagination run away with you,” he said sharply, returning to his seat and lighting his pipe.
He wanted to make her feel that she had transgressed foolishly. He wanted to be a shield for Virginia Denbigh—wanted it passionately.
Fanchon watched him, her head lowered. She looked, he thought, like a slender bewitching sorceress about to work a spell upon him—or upon Virginia’s picture.