“You’re distorting what I said, Betty.”
“Am I? Didn’t you say I wasn’t to help take care of a sick man because it wasn’t proper?”
“I said you were acting rather absurdly about this man Hollister,” he replied tartly. “There’s no call to turn the world upside down because he’s wounded. You want a sense of proportion.”
“I think that’s what you need, Justin,” she answered, a flush of anger burning her cheeks. “You’ve been horrid about it from the start without any reason.”
She moved down the hill toward the cabin. Merrick walked beside her. His eyes were hard and his lips set close.
For the first time it dawned upon Betty that he was jealous of her interest in another man. He was possessive, wanted to absorb all her thoughts, intended to be the center of every activity she had. This did not please her. It alarmed the individual in her. Marriage, as she had dreamed it, was wonderful because it enhanced life. It was the union of two souls, releasing all the better forces of their natures. Through it would come freedom and not bondage. The joys of the senses would be shared and transmuted to spiritual power. They ought not to put chains on a man or a woman that would narrow the horizon.
An illusion had been shattered. Justin was not the man with whom she could walk hand in hand. She sighed, and drew the gauntlet from her left hand.
Merrick looked at the ring she had dropped into his hand, then straight at her with rigid gaze.
“Are you in love with this fellow Hollister? Is that what it means?” he asked harshly.
The color in her cheeks deepened. “That’s—hateful of you, Justin,” she said, her voice ragged with feeling.