Eve kept her head bent. Painful, inaudible sobs were shaking her from head to foot.
“It's something in you—something unconscious—something high and fine, that holds me back—that literally bars the way. Eve, can't you see that I'm fighting—fighting hard?”
After he had spoken there was silence—a long, painful silence—during which Eve waged the battle that so many of her sex have waged before; the battle in which words are useless and tears of no account. She looked very slight, very young, very forlorn, as she stood there. Then, in the oppressive sense of waiting that filled the whole room, she looked up at him.
Her face was stained with tears, her thick, black lashes were still wet with them; but her expression, as her eyes met Loder's, was a strange example of the courage, the firmness, the power of sacrifice that may be hidden in a fragile vessel.
She said nothing, for in such a moment words do not come easily, but with the simplest, most submissive, most eloquent gesture in the world she set his perplexity to rest.
Taking his hand between hers, she lifted it and for a long, silent space held it against her lips.
XXXIII
For a while there was silence; then Loder, bitterly aware that he had conquered, poignantly conscious of the appeal that Eve's attitude made, found further endurance impossible. Gently freeing his hand, he moved away from her to the fireplace, taking up the position that she had first occupied.
“Eve,” he said, slowly, “I haven't finished yet. I haven't said everything. I'm going to tax your courage further.”