“You see I can’t—”
“But exactly in what does—”
They had both begun at once, they both stopped. Then, Hermione, assuming priority of speech, resumed as if wearily:
“To what does he want you to submit?”
“He says he wants me to accept him non-emotionally, and finally—I really don’t know what he means. He says he wants the demon part of himself to be mated—physically—not the human being. You see he says one thing one day, and another the next—and he always contradicts himself—”
“And always thinks about himself, and his own dissatisfaction,” said Hermione slowly.
“Yes,” cried Ursula. “As if there were no one but himself concerned. That makes it so impossible.”
But immediately she began to retract.
“He insists on my accepting God knows what in him,” she resumed. “He wants me to accept him as—as an absolute—But it seems to me he doesn’t want to give anything. He doesn’t want real warm intimacy—he won’t have it—he rejects it. He won’t let me think, really, and he won’t let me feel—he hates feelings.”
There was a long pause, bitter for Hermione. Ah, if only he would have made this demand of her? Her he drove into thought, drove inexorably into knowledge—and then execrated her for it.