“You heard from him last week,” he said again, and again she answered:
“Yes—last week. Why not?”
He leaned forward, and before she knew what he intended to do he kissed her pale, cool cheek.
Once more she stood still and immobile, her hands loosely clasped before her. It might have been that he had kissed a statue, and her perfect stillness made him afraid.
“Ella,” he said. “Ella.”
“Why did you do that?” she said, a little wildly now in her turn. “It was not that you were going to do to me before.”
“I love you,” he muttered excusingly.
She shook her head.
“You know too little of me; you have too many doubt and fears,” she said. “You do not love me, you do not even trust me.”
“I love you all the same,” he asserted positively and roughly. “I loved you—it was when I tied your hands to the chair that night and you looked at me with such contempt, and asked me if I felt proud. That stung, that stung. I loved you then.”