"I have another stipulation to make," said Beatrice, "You are all to
swear to me that for that week no word of this will pass your mouths;
that for that week I shall not be annoyed or interfered with, or spoken
to on the subject, not by one of you. If at the end of it I still refuse
to accept your terms, you can do your worst, but till then you must hold
your hand."
Owen Davies hesitated; he was suspicious.
"Remember," Beatrice went on, raising her voice, "I am a desperate
woman. I may turn at bay, and do something which you do not expect, and
that will be very little to the advantage of any of you. Do you swear?"
"Yes," said Owen Davies.
Then Beatrice looked at Elizabeth, and Elizabeth looked at her. She saw
that the matter had taken a new form. She saw what her jealous folly
had hitherto hidden from her--that Beatrice did not mean to marry Owen
Davies, that she was merely gaining time to execute some purpose of
her own. What this might be Elizabeth cared little so that it did not
utterly extinguish chances that at the moment seemed faint enough. She
did not want to push matters against her sister, or her lover Geoffrey,
beyond the boundary of her own interests.
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