She had taken up a weapon at last, she really challenged him; and he felt, full on that quivering nerve of dread, that she defended at once herself and the man she loved from her own and from his unveiling.
It made a sort of rage rise in him.
“A man who cares for you,—a man who depends on you,—as he does,—a man whom you care for,—so much,—is a bloodless vampire if he doesn’t—respond.”
When he had driven the knife in like that, straight up to the hilt, he hardly knew whether his anger or his adoration were the greater; for, as if over a disabling wound, she bent her head in utter surrender, quite still for a moment, and then saying only, while she looked at him as if more sorry for him than for herself, “You hurt me, Jim.”
Tears of fury stood in his eyes. “You hurt, too. My love for you—a disease. My love, Eppie!”
“Forgive me.”
“Forgive you! I worship everything you say or do!”
“It was that it hurt too much to see—what you did, with your eyes.”
“Then—then—you don’t deny it,—if I have eyes to see, he too must see—how much you care?”
“I don’t deny it.”