“I’m scared half to death,” she remarked, without a 196 quaver in her voice, but her smile had now become forced, and a quick, uneven little sigh escaped her as she passed her arms through Barres’ and Westmore’s, and, moving across the carpet between them, suffered herself to be installed among the Chinese cushions upon the lounge by the open window.
In her distractingly pretty summer hat and gown, and with her white gloves and gold-mesh purse in her lap—her fresh, engaging face and daintily rounded figure—Thessalie Dunois seemed no more mature, no more experienced in worldly wisdom, than the charming young girls one passes on Fifth Avenue on a golden morning in early spring.
But Westmore, looking into her dark eyes, divined, perhaps, something less inexperienced, less happy in their lovely, haunted depths. And, troubled by he knew not what, he waited in silence for her to speak.
Barres said to her:
“You are being annoyed, Thessa, dear. I gather that much from what has already happened. Can Jim and I do anything?”
“I don’t know.... It’s come to a point where I—I’m afraid—to be alone.”
Her gaze fell; she sat brooding for a few moments, then, with a quick intake of breath:
“It humiliates me to come to you. Would you believe that of me, Garry, that it has come to a point where I am actually afraid to be alone? I thought I had plenty of what the world calls courage.”
“You have!”
“I had. I don’t know what’s become of it—what has happened to me.... I don’t want to tell you more than I have to——”