"What I am. What I might do if I really cared."
"There are things you'd never do. You'd never do anything mean or dishonourable or cruel."
"Oh, you don't know what I'd do…Don't worry, Eliot. I shall be too busy with the land and with Colin to do very much."
"I'm not worrying."
All the same he wondered which of them knew Anne best, he or Anne herself, or Jerrold.
XI
INTERIM
i
Colin thought with terror of the time when Queenie would come back from the war. At any moment she might get leave and come; if she had not had it yet that only made it more likely that she would have it soon.
The vague horror that waited for him every morning had turned into this definite fear of Queenie. He was afraid of her temper, of her voice and eyes, of her crude, malignant thoughts, of her hatred of Anne. More than anything he was afraid of her power over him, of her vehement, exhausting love. He was afraid of her beauty.