But Alwynne's face did not relax.
"I won't take it back. I gave it to you. I made it to give you pleasure. If you don't want it, burn it, give it to your maid, throw it away. Do you think I care what becomes of it? But I won't take it back. That is an insult. You say that to hurt me."
"You'll take it back because I wish you to."
"I won't. You shouldn't wish me to."
"You know I dislike presents."
"I never labelled it a present in my mind. You talk as if we were strangers."
"Perhaps, then," murmured Clare, still smiling, "I dislike the hint that you consider my wardrobe inadequate."
Alwynne caught her breath. For the last ten minutes she had been growing angry, not in her usual summer-tempest fashion, but with a slow, cold anger that was pain. She felt Clare's attitude an indelicacy—the discussion a degradation. She sickened at its pettiness. She seemed to be defending, not herself, but some shrinking, weaponless creature, from attack and outrage.... The fight had been sudden, desperate; but at Clare's last sentence she knew herself vanquished, knew that the first love of her life had been most mortally wounded.
She turned blindly. She had no tears, no regret: her sensations were purely physical. She was numbed, breathless, choking, conscious only of an overpowering desire for fresh air, for escape into the open. But first she must say good-bye, head erect, betraying nothing ... say good-bye to the dark figure that was no longer Clare.... A sentence from a child's book danced through her mind in endless repetition, They rubbed her eyes with the ointment, and she saw it was only a stock. Of course! And now she must go away quickly.... She should choke if she could not get into the air....
She heard her own voice, flat and tiny—