Almost she would rather have felt his blows raining on her head.
"What?" she cried, a new amazement within her.
He glared down at her. His breath was on her cheek.
"You heard," he stated. And he stood stock still.
Frightened beyond believing or seeing, she offered her cheek to him. "But I—" she managed to get out.
Pell saw that she was shrinking away again; she could not bring herself to do as he willed.
"So!" her husband cried, significantly. Now she realized, in a blinding flash, the cruel subtlety behind his test of her. Her head went back; she closed her eyes. And then—how she did it she never knew—she raised her mouth.
"I don't want to kiss you." It was the refinement of cruelty. "I want you to kiss me. Do it!" His hands were behind his back. He stood straight and stiff as an Indian chief.
He watched her least movement. He put his lips very close to her mouth. She struggled in that one mad second, and tried to kiss him. She could not—she could not bring herself to the act.
He laughed sardonically. The devil himself could not have laughed liked that.