There was a turmoil in his brain; he wanted to speak to her about Bertie. But he suddenly remembered his promise to his friend never to reveal anything of his past life. Frank was a man who simply regarded a spoken word as inviolable, and he suddenly perceived that he could not say what he had on his tongue. And yet, he remembered his uncomfortable sensations when, on the top of Moldehoï, Eva had so innocently expressed her change of opinion in his friend's favour. Had he not then felt, as though the black clouds were an omen of evil hanging over her head? And had he not experienced the same shudder as he saw them sitting side by side on the sofa, as if a noose were ready to cast round her neck? It was an instinctive dread, springing up unexpectedly, without anything to lead up to it. Ought he not to speak, to tell her what Bertie was? But he had promised--and it was foolishly superstitious to allow such an unreasoning terror to have any influence on his mind. Bertie was not like ordinary men; he was very lazy, and lived too contentedly at the expense of others--a thing that Westhove could not understand, and over which in his good nature he simply shook his head with a smile--but Bertie was not wicked. So he was concealing nothing from Eva but that Bertie had no money. Still, he had meant to say something, something was seething in his brain. Eva was looking at him wide-eyed; he must speak. So he went on, embarrassed in spite of himself, coerced by a mysterious force which seemed to dictate the words: "I was going to say--perhaps you will think me silly--but I do not like, I do not think it right--" She still looked at him with her surprised eyes, smiling at his hesitancy. It was this very indecision which, in her eyes, was so engaging a contrast to his stalwart frame; she sat down on his knee, leaning against him, and her voice sounded like a poem of love: "Well, what, Frank? My dearest Frank, what is it?" Her eyes smiled in his; she laid her arms round his neck, clasping her hands, and again she asked: "Tell me, foolish boy, what is the matter?" "I do not like to see you always--that you should always--sit so--with Bertie." The words forced their way against his will; and now that they were spoken it seemed to him that he had meant to say something quite different. Eva was amazed. "Sit so with Bertie!" she repeated. "How do I sit with Bertie? Have I done anything I ought not? Or--tell me, Frank, are you so horribly jealous?" He clasped her closer, and, kissing her hair, he muttered: "Yes, yes! I am jealous." "But of Bertie--your best friend, who lives with you? You cannot surely be jealous of him!" She burst out laughing, and, carried away by her own mirth, fairly shook as she sat there, on his knee, with her head against his shoulder.