"Not much. It looks as if I couldn't do things without you."
A look of heavenly happiness came upon her face, and passed.
"That isn't so, George. There never was anybody less dependent on other
people. That's why nothing has ever stopped you. Nothing ever will.
Whereas--you're right about me. Anything might stop me."
"Could _I_ stop you?"
Not for his life could he have told what made him ask her that question,
whether an insane impulse, or a purely intellectual desire to complete
his knowledge of her, to know how deep she had gone in and what his
power was, whether he could, indeed, "stop" her.
"You?" she said, and her voice had a long, profound and passionate
vibration. He had not dreamed that such a tone could have been wrung
from Jane.
Her eyes met his. Steady they were and deep, under their level brows;
but in them, too, was that sudden, unexpected quality. Something in her
startled him with its intensity.
Her voice, her look, had made it impossible for him to tell her about
Rose. It was not the moment.
"I didn't know she was like that," he thought.
No, he had never known until now what Jane was; never seen until now
that the gods in giving her genius had given her one passion the more,
to complicate her, to increase tenfold her interest and her charm.
And, with the charm of Rose upon him, he could not tell whether, if he
had known, it would have made any difference. All he knew or cared to
know was that he was going to marry Rose the day after to-morrow.
He would have to ask Nicky to let him go back with him and stay the
night. Then he could tell him. And he could get out of telling Jane. He
liked teasing and tormenting her, but he did not want to stab her. Still
less did he want to stand by with the steel in his hand and see her
bleed.
He must get away from Jane.