“I love you,” she answered, “but I can never be your mistress. I’m not angry with you....”
“Do you think I should care if you were?” he interrupted, violently. “Do you think I care a damn for your anger?—or your love? You would like to be cruel to me: I know: I know your sort. But I can wash you from my mind as easily as the sea has put out my cigarette.”
“Oh, no!” she said; “you can’t do that. You know you can’t. Something of me will be with you always.”
He took the oars and began to row. The little indigo waves passed by them; the feathered oars slid along their crests. At each pull the boat leapt; something of his strength was imparted to her body; she quivered in response.
At the quay of the White Tower he was rough and insolent.
“Get out, quick!” he commanded; “let’s finish this ridiculous business as speedily as possible.”
She turned upon him with an amused smile.
“You have the most dreadful manners of any man I have ever met,” she said, with a little laugh. “When you are in a temper, you are about twelve years old.”
He called a gharry, waited until she had stepped into it, and then strode away.
Mrs. Kontorompa was sitting up in bed, reading, when Katya opened her mother’s bedroom door. She looked at her daughter with a contented smile.