"She is like a dream of snow, or purity—or something," says Dulce, vaguely, but admiringly.
"Or ice?" says Fabian.
"Oh, no, not ice. It is too hard, too unsympathetic, too cold."
"They are both cold, are they not?" says Portia, with a very faint smile. "Both ice and snow."
"Dulce, Dulce!" calls somebody, from without.
"Now, who is that," says Miss Blount, irritably. "Roger, of course. I really never am allowed one moment to myself when he is in the house. He spends his entire time, first calling me, and then quarreling with me when he finds me. He does it on purpose, I think. He can't bear me to have even one peaceful or happy instant. I never met any one so utterly provoking as Roger."
She runs to him, nevertheless, and Portia moves as if to follow her.
"Don't leave me in anger," entreats Fabian, in some agitation, detaining her by a gesture full of entreaty. "Do anything but that. Think of the long hours I shall have to put in here, by myself, with nothing but my own thoughts; and say something kind to me before you go."
"You forget," she says, with slow reproach, her eyes on the ground. "How can you hope for anything—even one word—sympathetic from ice. Let me go to Dulce."
"You shall not leave me like this," dictates he, desperately, shutting the door with sudden passion, and deliberately placing his back against it. "Am I not sufficiently unhappy that you should seek to make me even more so; to add, indeed, a very crown to my misery. I will not face the long night alone with this fresh grief! The remembrance of your face as it now looks at me, of your eyes, so calm, so unforgiving, would fill the weary hours with madness. You don't know what it is to endure the pangs of Tantalus, to have a perpetual hunger at your heart that can never be satisfied. I do. I have suffered enough. You must be friends with me before you go."