“You must,” he said shortly. “It’s madness. This isn’t a case for fooling. It’s marriage—and suicide. If it were marriage or suicide you would be a wise man to choose the latter alternative,” he added grimly.
René moved impatiently. “I know. I know. You needn’t rub it in. But—she’s adorable. I can’t forget her.”
François regarded him patiently. “My dear fellow,” he said after a moment, “you may think you’re in love, but do at least try to keep off arrant nonsense. You know as well as I do that you will forget her. That two months after you get back, she’ll be an occasional sentimental memory, and that a year hence, you will never think of her at all.”
René laughed shortly. “You’re a detestable brute!” he exclaimed with the half wistful half amused smile of a spoilt child, which made part of his charm.
“And the worst of it is, you’re always right. I don’t want to marry her. I don’t want to marry any one. I’m not the man to marry. I’ve got work to do. You’re quite right. I was a fool to go back.”
“And I suppose there was a love scene, and a declaration of sorts?”
François’ voice was ironical, but there was anxiety under the light words.
“No.” He grew suddenly grave. “She asked me to go—and I went.”
There was a silence which lasted some minutes. The wood fire crackled, and the lamp illumined the comfortable room with its fifteenth-century beams overhead, its panelled walls and its red-covered sofa and chairs.
“Anne Page is not a woman to fool with,” said François at last. He was thinking of what she had once said, sitting in the sunshine of the garden. “Then an artist ought to keep out of the way of any woman who cares. But he wouldn’t if she pleased him.”