Her face was flaming, her voice shook with outraged pride.
"Stop!" she cried, drawing herself up, no longer afraid. She emerged from fear commanding, impressive, and Hilton hesitated, putting one hand to a chair back and eyeing her calculatingly as though scheming. The vein on his forehead still stood out like an uneven seam.
"For shame!" she cried again. "Shame on you, Dick Hilton, and shame on me for having tolerated, for having believed in you ... little as I did! Oh, I loathe it all, you and myself—that was—because if it had not been for that other self which tolerated you, which gave you the opening, this ... this insult would never have been. You, who failing to buy a woman's love, would take it by strength! You would do this, and talk of your desire as love. You, who scoff at men whose respect for women is as real as the lives they lead. You ... you beast!"
She hissed the word.
"Yes, beast!" he repeated again. "Like all these other beasts, these others who are blinding you as you say I have blinded you, who have—"
"Stop it!" she demanded again. "There is nothing more to be said ... ever. We understand one another now and there is but one thing left for you to do."
"And that?"
"Go."
He laughed bitterly and ran a hand over his sleek hair.
"If I go, you go with me," he said evenly.