“You never guessed! Good God!”--with a harsh laugh--“I should have thought I’d made it plain enough. Why, even that first day, on the river--I wanted you then. What do you suppose has brought me to Staple every day? Affection for Blaise Tormarin?”--cynically. “I thought--I thought----” She cast about in her mind for an answer, then presented him with the simple truth. “I’m afraid I never thought about it at all. I just took your coming over for granted. I knew you and Judith were old friends and neighbours, so it seemed quite natural for you to be here often--just as Claire Latimer is.” Burke searched her face for a moment. He was thinking of the other women he had known--women who would never have remained blind to his meaning, who had, indeed, shown their willingness to come half-way--more than half-way--to meet him. “I really believe that’s true,” he said at last, grudgingly. “But if it is, you’re the most unselfconscious woman I’ve ever come across.” “Of course it’s true,” she replied simply. “I’m--I’m so sorry, Geoffrey. I like you far too much to have wished to hurt you.” “I don’t want liking. I want your love. And I mean to have it. You may not have understood before, Jean, but you do now.” She drew herself away from him a little. “That doesn’t make any difference, Geoffrey. I have no love to give you,” she said quietly. He shook his head. “I won’t take no,” he said doggedly. “You’re the woman I want. And I mean to have you.... Don’t you understand? It’s no use fighting against me. You may say no, now; you may say no fifty times. But one day you’ll say--yes.” Jean’s slight frame tautened. “You are mistaken,” she said, in a chill, clear voice calculated to set immeasurable spaces between them. “I’m not a cave woman to be forced into marriage. Oh!”--the ludicrous side of this imperious kind of wooing striking her suddenly--“don’t be so absurd, Geoffrey! You can’t seize me by the hair and carry me off to your own particular hole in the rocks, you know.” She began to laugh a little. “Let’s just go on being good friends--and forget that this has ever happened.” She held out her hand, but he took no notice of the little friendly gesture. There was a red gleam in his eyes, a smouldering glow that needed but a breath to fan it into flame. “You speak as if it were something that was over and done with,” he said in a low, tense voice. “But it isn’t; it never will be. I love you and want you, and I shall go on loving you and wanting you as long as I live. Jean--sweetest”--his voice suddenly softened incredibly--“I’ll try to be more gentle. But when a man loves as I do, he doesn’t stop to choose his words.” He stepped closer to her. “Oh! You little, little thing! Why, I could pick you up and carry you off to my cave with two fingers. Jean, when will you marry me?” His big frame towered beside her. He paid no more attention to her dismissal of him than if she had not spoken, and she was conscious of an odd feeling of impotence.