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Page 125
prevent that anyway. The question remained whether Geoffrey would feel obliged to lead the army to Ian's strongholds if asked to do so.
They were walking slowly side by side through the garden while the sun flicked in and out behind the hurrying clouds of early morning. The roses were still in full bloom. When their scent came to Geoffrey, memory came with it. He glanced around, drew Joanna into the shadow of the tall canes, and kissed her hungrily. She permitted the embrace passively, her mind still fixed on the problem of how to protect Ian's property from Geoffrey's honor.
After a few moments, Geoffrey released her lips. "Are you angry because I was not here to greet you?" he asked softly, "Or because of what I said last night?"
"I am not angry at all," Joanna assured him, a trifle absently.
"Then why" he began, but before he could finish the question the explanation most obvious to a jealous mind overtook him. "I suppose you have already found someone more to your taste. I beg your pardon, I am sure, for forcing my attentions on you."
"What have I done?" Joanna gasped in the blankest surprise. "Why should you accuse me of such a thing? We are betrothed. How could anyone be more to my taste? What would it matter if anyone was?"
Naturally enough, Geoffrey did not answer any of her questions. He did not know how to describe the difference between her warm, eager passivity in the garden of Roselynde and the cold, indifferent passivity of this last kiss. As to the final two questions, they provided him equally with reassurance and with pain. Both betrayed that Joanna was completely innocent of and totally ignorant of love either for him or for anyone else.
"What is wrong?" Joanna repeated anxiously.
Even as she spoke, realization came to her. Somehow Geoffrey had felt that she was not paying attention to his kiss. It did not seem to Joanna that she had acted in any way differently from the previous time he had kissed her. Then

 
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