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nobody, and followed him, leaving the door ajar.
He stood by her dressing-table, looking down, his fingers
lightly touching the lids of cosmetic jars, perfume bottles,
her hairbrush. She waited, a few feet away, looking at the
back of his dark head.
Then he seemed to jerk himself together, turned and
looked at her, his face unreadable.
“I am sorry about that incident on the beach,” he said
formally. “I lost my temper.”
“You blame me for Jean-Paul,” she said quietly. “You’re
wrong. You should never have agreed to that arrangement,
you know. It’s that that has been at the bottom of the
trouble with Pallas all the time—she felt she was under
pressure, being forced to marry him.”
“Arranged marriages work very well,” he said de-
fensively, “and I am certain Pallas liked Jean-Paul very
much. I should never have sent her to school in England. It
has given her crazy ideas.”
She flushed. “Like falling in love and choosing whom one
marries?”
“Exactly so,” he retorted. “You chose whom you should
marry, and see what a mess you have made of your life!”
“You have no right to say that!” she said angrily.
“Isn’t it true?” he asked thickly. “Can you deny that Peter
Hardy is selfish and indifferent to you? All he thinks of is
his work. He doesn’t love you. He probably never has—or
only for a short while. I do not suppose he will ever fall in
love with anyone. He is too self-obsessed.”
“You mustn’t say this to me,” she said weakly, unable to
deny what had become obvious to her with every day that
