CHAPTER IX
THE GOLDEN AGE
Justin Ford had not been unsuccessful with women. Many of them had liked him, and might have loved him if he had cared to make them, but until he met Bettina Dolce he had not cared.
There was about Bettina, however, a certain remoteness which puzzled him. She responded to his advances with girlish gayety, but her cool sweet glance held no hint of self-consciousness, and beyond a certain point of light flirtation he had, as yet, dared not go.
He pondered these things one morning as he worked on his delicate machine in the great shed with its wide opening toward the water.
Why had little Bettina erected a barrier? She knew nothing of the arts of sophisticated coquetry, so he absolved her from any intention to rouse his interest. Was she unawakened? Was there another man?
He laid down his pipe to think out that last startling proposition. There had been no men in her secluded life.
Except Anthony Blake! Gracious Peter, could it be Anthony? There came to Justin, suddenly, a vision of Bettina in the shadowy room. Of her childish dependence upon the doctor, of her little claims of intimacy, her evident preference for the older man's society, her vehement denial the night of the dinner that there could be anything but friendship between Anthony and Diana.