He did not respond to her caresses, he was sullen, they left the spinney; but as they walked she took his arm murmuring: “Forgive me, I’ll make it all up to you some day.”
Coyness and cunning, passion and pride, were so much at odds that later on they quarrelled again. Kate knew that he would neither marry her nor let her go; she could neither let him go nor keep him. This figure of her distress amused him, he was callously provoking, and her resentment flowed out at the touch of his scorn. With Kate there seemed to be no intermediate stages between docility and fury, or even between love and hatred.
“Why are you like this?” she cried, beating her pallid hands together, “I have known you for so long.”
“Ah, we have known each other for so long, but as for really knowing you—no! I’m not a tame rabbit to be fondled any more.”
She stared for a moment, as if in recollection; then burst into ironical laughter. He caught her roughly in his arms but she beat him away.
“O, go to ... go to....”
“Hell?” he suggested.
“Yes,” she burst out tempestuously, “and stop there.”
He was stunned by her unexpected violence. She was coarse like Ianthe after all. But he said steadily:
“I’m willing to go there if you will only keep out of my way when I arrive.”