Hugh threw back his head and laughed.
"Jealous of Seymour?" he cried. "Do you really think I would marry you if you consented in the spirit in which you are taking him? Once, it is true, I wanted to. You refused to cheat me—those were your words—and I begged you to cheat me, I implored you to cheat me, so long as you gave me yourself.
"I didn't care how you took me, so long as you took me. But now I wouldn't take you like that. Now, for this last week, I have seen you and him together, and I know what it is like."
"You haven't seen us together much," said Nadine.
"I have seen you enough: I told you before that your marriage was a farce. I was wrong. It's much worse than a farce. You needn't laugh at a farce. But you can't help laughing, at least I can't, at a tragedy so ludicrous."
Nadine got up. The situation was as violent and sudden as some electric storm. What had been pent-up in him all this week, had exploded: something in her exploded also.
"I think I hate you," she said.
"I am sure I despise you," said he.
He got up also, facing her. It was like the bursting of a reservoir: the great sheet of quiet water was suddenly turned into torrents and foam.
"I despise you," he said again. "You intended me to love you; you encouraged me to let myself go. All the time you held yourself in, though there was nothing to hold in; you observed, you dissected. You cut down with your damned scalpels and lancets to my heart, and said, 'How interesting to see it beating!' Then you looked coolly over your shoulder and saw Seymour, and said, 'He will do: he doesn't love me and I don't love him!' But now he does love you, and you probably guess that. So, very soon, your lancet will come out again, and you will see his heart beating. And again you will say, 'How interesting!' But there will be blood on your lancet. You are safe, of course, from reprisals. No one can cut into you, and see your blood flow, because you haven't any blood. You are something cold and hellish. You often said you understood me too well. Now you understand me even better. Toast my heart, fry it, eat it up! I am utterly at your mercy, and you haven't got any mercy. But I can manage to despise you: I can't do much else."