“Winn, come here,” said Claire. He came and knelt down beside her. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes. He tried to keep them hard, but he failed.
“Don’t try and get round me!” he said threateningly. “You’ll make me dangerous if you do. It isn’t the least good!”
“Can you listen to what I say?” Claire asked quietly.
“I suppose so,” said Winn, guardedly. “I love every bit of you — I love the ground your chair’s on — but I’m not going to give in.”
“And that’s the way I love you,” she said. “I’d go with you to the world’s end, Winn, if I didn’t love you so much and you’d take me there; but you won’t, for just the same reason. We can’t do what would be unfair; we shouldn’t like it. It’s no use, darling; we shouldn’t like it.”
“That’s all you know about it,” said Winn, unappeasably. “Anyhow, we’re going to do it, whether you like it or not.”
Then she took her hands away from his shoulders and leaned back in her chair. He had never seen her look so frail and small, and he knew that she had never been so formidably strong.
“Oh, no, Winn,” she whispered; “I’m not. I’m not going to do it. If you wanted it, if you really wanted it with all of you, you wouldn’t be rough with me; you’d be gentle. You’re not being gentle because you don’t think it right, and I’m never going to do what you don’t think right.”
Winn drew a deep, hard breath. He threw his arms round her and pressed her against his heart.
“I’m not rough,” he muttered, “and you’ve got to do it! You’ve got to give in!”