“I am, not afraid of Quade.  The incident was nothing more than an agreeable interruption to what was becoming a rather monotonous existence up here.  I have always believed, you know, that a certain amount of physical excitement is good oil for our mental machinery.  That, perhaps, was why you caught me hauling at His Coltship’s ear.”

He had spoken stiffly.  There was a hard note in his voice, a suggestion of something that was displeasing in his forced laugh.  He knew that in these moments he was fighting against his inner self—­against his desire to tell her how glad he was that something had held back the Tete Jaune train, and how wonderful her hair looked in the afternoon sun.  He was struggling to keep himself behind the barriers he had built up and so long maintained in his writings.  And yet, as he looked, he felt something crumbling into ruins.  He knew that he had hurt her.  The hardness of his words, the coldness of his smile, his apparently utter indifference to her had sent something that was almost like a quick, physical pain into her eyes.  He drew a step nearer, so that he caught the soft contour of her cheek.  Joanne Gray heard him, and lowered her head slightly, so that he could not see.  She was a moment too late.  On her cheek Aldous saw a single creeping drop—­a tear.

In an instant he was at her side.  With a quick movement she brushed the tear away before she faced him.

“I’ve hurt you,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes.  “I’ve hurt you, and God knows I’m a brute for doing it.  I’ve treated you as badly as Quade—­only in a different way.  I know how I’ve made you feel—­that you’ve been a nuisance, and have got me into trouble, and that I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.  Have I made you feel that?”

“I am afraid—­you have.”

He reached out a hand, and almost involuntarily her own came to it.  She saw the change in his face, regret, pain, and then that slow-coming, wonderful laughter in his eyes.

“That’s just how I set out to make you feel,” he confessed, the warmth of her hand sending a thrill through him.  “I might as well be frank, don’t you think?  Until you came I had but one desire, and that was to finish my book.  I had planned great work for to-day.  And you spoiled it.  I couldn’t get you out of my mind.  And it made me—­ugly.”

“And that was—­all?” she whispered, a tense waiting in her eyes.  “You didn’t think——­”

“What Quade thought,” he bit in sharply.  The grip of his fingers hurt her hand.  “No, not that.  My God, I didn’t make you think that?”

“I’m a stranger—­and they say women don’t go to Tete Jaune alone,” she answered doubtfully.