"Oh, please!" and she tried to tear her hand away.
He clung on desperately. "Eileen—don't say you don't care at all."
"I'm not Eileen, and I particularly dislike you at this moment. Let me have my hand, please."
He dropped it like a stinging nettle. "I was hoping you'd let me keep it," he murmured.
"Why?" She was simple and pitiless. "Because we read Plato together? That was platonic enough, wasn't it?"
"You can jest about what breaks my heart?"
"I am very sorry. I like you."
His breathing changed, "like a fish thrown back into the water," Eileen thought. She hastened to add, "But it's not what a wife should feel."
"How do you know what a wife should feel?"
Eileen screwed up her forehead. "If I felt it, I should know, I suppose."