Frances Mary did not apologize, though she had shouted too.
Presently something changed in her. She looked at Wilfred queerly. Settling back in her chair, she raised her head. “Wilfred, kiss me,” she said in a colorless voice.
He looked at her sharply. Her face was drawn and ugly. His instinct bade him refuse; but she had told him to do it. He was absurdly under her influence. He went to her with a hangdog air, and printed a cold kiss on her lips.
A little groan of rage was forced from Frances Mary. She sprang up so suddenly that her chair was knocked over backwards. All in the one movement, she fetched Wilfred such a smack on the cheek that his sight was blotted out for a moment. He fell back, covering the place, staring at her open-mouthed, clownishly. Frances Mary burst into tears; a catastrophic breakdown; her face working as absurdly and uglily as a small child’s; the tears fairly spurting from her eyes. Wilfred quickly recovered himself. He had to repress a desire to laugh. A load was lifted from his breast. She could feel! Frances Mary put her hands over her face, and turned away from him.
“Go! Go!” she murmured.
Wilfred walked to the other end of the room, and sat down on the couch. “I won’t go till I get to the bottom of this,” he said.
“You see . . . you see . . .” she gasped out in her torn voice.
She loves me! thought Wilfred in a maze. She feels passion for me! What a fatuous brute I have been! . . . Still, the bars had to be smashed down one way or another!
“Now you see what kind of a woman I am! . . . You’d better go!”
“I don’t think any of the worse of you,” said Wilfred, smiling to himself.