His eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a faint domineering smile on his face.
“Why should I think that?” he said.
She was watching him all the time with her dark, dilated, inchoate eyes. She leaned forward and swung round her arm, catching him a light blow on the face with the back of her hand.
“That’s why,” she said, mocking.
And she felt in her soul an unconquerable desire for deep violence against him. She shut off the fear and dismay that filled her conscious mind. She wanted to do as she did, she was not going to be afraid.
He recoiled from the slight blow on his face. He became deadly pale, and a dangerous flame darkened his eyes. For some seconds he could not speak, his lungs were so suffused with blood, his heart stretched almost to bursting with a great gush of ungovernable emotion. It was as if some reservoir of black emotion had burst within him, and swamped him.
“You have struck the first blow,” he said at last, forcing the words from his lungs, in a voice so soft and low, it sounded like a dream within her, not spoken in the outer air.
“And I shall strike the last,” she retorted involuntarily, with confident assurance. He was silent, he did not contradict her.
She stood negligently, staring away from him, into the distance. On the edge of her consciousness the question was asking itself, automatically:
“Why are you behaving in this impossible and ridiculous fashion.” But she was sullen, she half shoved the question out of herself. She could not get it clean away, so she felt self-conscious.