“What have I done?” he asked. “What?”
“What?” she echoed with contemptuous scorn. “Nothin'! But d'ye think I don't know ye?”
“Know me!” he repeated after her mechanically, finding it impossible to remove his glance from her.
“What d'ye take me me fur?” she demanded. “A fool? Yes, I was a fool—a fool to come here, 'n' set 'n' let ye—let ye despise me!” in a final outburst.
Still he could only echo her again, and say “Despise you!”
Her voice lowered itself into an actual fierceness of tone.
“Ye've done it from first to last,” she said. “Would ye look at her like ye look at me? Would ye turn half way 'n' look at her, 'n' then turn back as if—as if—. Aint there”—her eyes ablaze—“aint there no life—to me?”
“Stop!” he began hoarsely.
“I'm beneath her, am I?” she persisted. “Me beneath another woman—Dusk Dunbar! It's the first time!”
She walked toward the door as if to leave him, but suddenly she stopped. A passionate tremor shook her; he saw her throat swell. She threw her arm up against the logs of the wall and dropped her face upon it sobbing tumultuously.