He hesitated, then he gravely said: “Do not trust Englishmen more than you trust your own countrymen. We are selfish even in our friendships often. We stick to one person, and to benefit that one we sacrifice others. Have you found all Englishmen--and WOMEN unselfish?” He looked at her steadily; but immediately repented that he had asked the question, for he had in his mind one whom they both knew, too well, perhaps; and he added quickly: “You see, I am not kind.”
They were standing now in the sunlight just outside the house. His hands were thrust down in the pockets of his linen coat; her hands opening and shutting her parasol slightly. They might, from their appearance, have been talking of very inconsequent things.
Her eyes lifted sorrowfully to his. “Ah, monsieur,” she rejoined, “there are two times when one must fear a woman.” She answered his question more directly than he could have conjectured. But she felt that she must warn him.
“Of course you do not. Only women themselves understand that the two times when one must fear a woman are when she hates, and when she loves--after a kind. When she gets wicked or mad enough to hate, either through jealousy or because she cannot love where she would, she is merciless. She does not know the honour of the game. She has no pity. Then, sometimes when she loves in a way, she is, as you say, most selfish. I mean a love which--is not possible. Then she does some mad act--all women are a little mad sometimes. Most of us wish to be good, but we are quicksilver....”
Roscoe’s mind had been working fast. He saw she meant to warn him against Mrs. Falchion. His face flushed slightly. He knew that Justine had thought well of him, and now he knew also that she suspected something not creditable or, at least, hazardous in his life.
“And the man--the man whom the woman hates?”
“When the woman hates--and loves too, the man is in danger.”
“Do you know of such a man?” he almost shrinkingly said.
“If I did I would say to him, The world is wide. There is no glory in fighting a woman who will not be fair in battle. She will say what may appear to be true, but what she knows in her own heart to be false--false and bad.”
Roscoe now saw that Justine had more than an inkling of his story.
