She faced him stiffly in utter silence. One glimpse she had of his face, and only one; for she could not look again. The red-brown eyes were alight with a fire that seemed to consume her even from afar. She stood and numbly waited.
He came straight to her. "So," he said, "you have decided to make a fool of me, have you?"
His voice was very low, but it had in it the sound as of an angry animal. There was something of the animal in his pose also, something from which her whole being shrank affrighted.
Yet she was not without courage. She forced herself to a certain calmness. "Will you tell me what you mean?" she said.
He made a slight gesture that seemed to cry aloud of a savagery scarcely restrained. "I guess you can do that," he said. "What do I mean? Tell me!"
She drew back from him with an instinctive movement of recoil, but on the instant, as though she had stepped into a trap, his hands came out and caught her by the wrists. He held her firmly before him.
"Tell me!" he reiterated.
But she took refuge in silence. She had no words.
He held her so for many seconds, and she knew that during those seconds his eyes remained immovably fixed upon her. She made no attempt to resist him. She knew beyond all question that resistance would be worse than useless. But she refused with mute determination to meet his eyes. Crush her, conquer her, as he would, he should not force his way past every barrier unopposed. Her submission was physical but not mental. She had always held back from him her soul.
He spoke at length, and still in his voice she heard that terrible, deep menace as of a savage force that gathered and gathered under the thinning surface of his civilization. "I reckon you think I'm easier to fool than I am. Old friends must have their privileges. Ain't that so? And if they include a little genteel love-making, where's the harm? Who is to raise any objection? Not the husband who has been too big an oaf ever to make love to you in his life! The husband who just takes what he wants and leaves what's over for the lover! He should be the last person to interfere, I reckon. Ain't that so?"