“Don’t go; stay just a moment. I so seldom see you now. Why do you avoid me?”
“You ask me that?”
“Yes,” steadily.
“Your own conscience can answer better than I.”
“It tells me only of my love for you.”
“You must have it well under control then.”
Clark’s dark eyes flamed. “You doubt my love, my devotion, after all these months?”
Beatrice faced him squarely, her face showing white and drawn in the cold electric light.
“Do you call it ‘love’ to torment me day after day with unwelcome attentions; to use my stepmother as a lever against me; to poison my father’s affection for me with lying tales? Do you think that a way to win a woman?”
Clark’s handsome face paled under Beatrice’s accusing eyes.