"Oh, Laurie, I can't go away angry!" She put her hand on his sleeve. The roughness and realness of his sleeve hurt her hand. She did not want it.
Without looking up, he reached an arm around her.
"Have you talked to the doctor, Winnie?" He could not look at her.
"Yes," she whispered, lying. When she lied she blamed him more.
"Are you sure you're all right, Winnie?" He forced out the words very deliberately. They were like stones to his lips.
She hesitated an instant. Then she said, "Yes. Kiss me. Oh, Laurie, it's so awful I—it's so awful I——"
He put the book down and faced her in her embrace. She thought he seemed calm and satisfied as though the doctor had become proxy for his conscience. Winnie's eyes, fiercely soft, stared into his and made him feel furtive and depressed. He kissed her to keep from looking at her.
When their mouths were together his cruelty made her strong. She forgave him. He was a dark thing close to her, smothering her with his breath. His clothed body dissolved in her immediate recognition of his flesh, and she had a sickish sensation as of life stirring in her. Shamelessly kind and unmoved, he had believed this impossible thing.
She moved away from him in spite of herself and with a pang she felt how his hand dropped away in relief that she did not want it. She would not go away.
"You don't love me!"