She did not attempt to release her arm.
"Keep your hand to yourself, Marcus, please," she said quietly.
"You'd like it, wouldn't you, Jean? My God, I'd sacrifice my soul for you, you little devil!"
"Be sensible," she said. It was not her words or her firm tone that made him draw back. Twice and deliberately she drew the edge of her little knife across the back of his hand, and he leapt away with a howl of pain.
"You—you beast," he stammered, and she looked at him with her sly smile.
"There must have been cave women, too, Marcus," she said coolly, as she rose. "They had their methods—give me your handkerchief, I want to wipe this knife."
His face was grey now. He was looking at her like a man bereft of his senses.
He did not move when she took his handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the knife, closed and slipped it into her bag, before she replaced the handkerchief tidily. And all the time he stood there with his hand streaming with blood, incapable of movement. It was not until she had disappeared round the corner of the house that he pulled out the handkerchief and wrapped it about his hand.
"A devil," he whimpered, almost in tears, "a devil!"