"Good-night," she called.
"Look here!" he snarled coming back to her "What's the matter with you? I know I oughtn't to have asked Lilian to marry me. Everybody knows that. It's universally agreed. But are you going to make that an excuse for spoiling the whole show? What's up with you is pride."
"And what is up with you?" she inquired.
"Pride," said he. "How could I know you were in love with me all the time? How could——"
"You couldn't," said Helen. "I wasn't. No more than you were with me."
"If you weren't in love with me, why did you try to make me jealous?"
"Me try to make you jealous!" she exclaimed, disdainfully. "You flatter yourself, Mr. Dean!"
"I can stand a good deal, but I can't stand lies, and I won't!" he exploded. "I say you did try to make me jealous."
He then noticed that she was crying.
The duologue might have extended itself indefinitely if her tears had not excited him to uncontrollable fury, to that instinctive cruelty that every male is capable of under certain conditions. Without asking her permission, without uttering a word of warning, he rushed at her and seized her in his arms. He crushed her with the whole of his very considerable strength. And he added insult to injury by kissing her about forty seven times. Women are such strange, incalculable creatures. Helen did not protest. She did not invoke the protection of Heaven. She existed, passively and silently, the unremonstrating victim of his disgraceful violence.