"Lawrence! Lawrence!" she sobbed. Her voice startled him. Its pleading, yielding intensity sent his own blood racing. He let her go, and stepped back quickly while his breath came short.
"Pardon me, Claire," he muttered, and turned away.
Claire saw Philip watching them, in his eyes a strange, new glitter. She rushed past him to the cabin and into her little room.
It was a silent dinner they ate that day.
Claire was deeply, bitterly humiliated, and she kept seeing again and again with exaggerated clearness that look in Philip's eyes when she had staggered free from Lawrence's arms. It burned in her mind like an unquenchable coal, and she revolted at it. She was utterly unable to collect her thoughts. She fancied she could still feel the warm pressure of Lawrence's body while she suffered untold agony of soul for having been carried away by his touch. She reproached herself with a scorn that seared for having ever allowed herself to engage in that silly scuffle.
She could scarcely bear to sit at the table with Philip, and she did not once look in his direction. In her heart there was no anger against Lawrence, only a dull, aching dread, tempered with a longing she did not attempt to analyze.
Dominating her thought was the one phrase, "Why need Philip have seen?"
That look in his eyes--oh, God! would she have to go on day after day facing those eyes that compelled her in spite of herself? Must she feel his glances burning through her when her soul was filled with hatred for him? But was it hatred? Surely his eyes, those lights that made her marvel, were the windows to a high and noble soul. Yes, he was fine, yet she wished he was not there, that she had never known him. She asked herself if she would rather have perished, and she knew she would not. Better to have lived forever with Philip's eyes piercing into her than to give up life when Lawrence was with her, needing her, and--she stopped--loving her, yes, loving her. It was true. She remembered his voice when he had released her, and thrilled again at the tense note.
He did love her! And Philip? She felt her heart sink, and then a strange, subtle warmth came over her. It was good to be loved by two men so powerful, so worth while, each in his own way.
