The Pagan Madonna - Page 83/141

Instinct--the female fear of the trap--warned Jane to be off, but

curiosity held her to the chair. She was human; and this flattery, free of

any suggestion of love-making, gave her a warming, pleasurable thrill.

Still there was a fly in the amber. Every woman wishes to be credited with

hidden fires, to possess equally the power to damn men as well as to save

them.

"Has there never been----"

"A woman? Have I not just said there is always a woman?" He was sardonic

now. "Mine, seeing me walk, laughed."

"She wasn't worth it!"

"No, she wasn't. But when we are twenty the heart is blind. So Cleigh and

the boy don't speak?"

"Cleigh hasn't injured you in any way, has he?"

"Injured me? Of course not! I am only forced by circumstance--and an

oblique sense of the comic--to make a convenience of him. And by the Lord

Harry, it's up to you to help me out!"

"I?"--bewildered.