“I want my freedom,” she said, after a little pause.
“Don’t be silly, Elly,” he whispered in a tone of remonstrance and advancing slowly towards her. “Make it up. Chuck all these ideas.”
She shook her head.
“We’ve got to get along together. You can’t go going about just anywhere. We’ve got—we’ve got to be reasonable.”
He halted, three paces away from her. His eyes weren’t sorrowful eyes, or friendly eyes; they were just shiftily eager eyes. “Look here,” he said. “It’s all nonsense.... Elly, old girl; let’s—let’s make it up.”
She looked at him and it dawned upon her that she had always imagined herself to be afraid of him and that indeed she wasn’t. She shook her head obstinately.
“It isn’t reasonable,” he said. “Here, we’ve been the happiest of people——Anything in reason I’ll let you have.” He paused with an effect of making an offer.
“I want my autonomy,” she said.
“Autonomy!” he echoed. “Autonomy! What’s autonomy? Autonomy!”
This strange word seemed first to hold him in distressful suspense and then to infuriate him.