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 flared 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."
Then he left her standing in a lane: he hurried and ran, clambering over stiles and brushing through hedges, anything to get away from the detestable creature. She did not follow him and they were soon out of sight of each other. Anger and commination swarmed to his lips, he branded her with frenzied opprobrium and all the beastliness that was in him. Nothing under heaven should ever persuade him to approach the filthy beast again, the damned intolerable drab, never, never again, never.