»Do you know ... either you are a fool or you have been very little beaten!«
She looked at him and laughed aloud.
»My God, yes! My author! A most perfect author! How could one help hitting you, my dear?«
She apparently chose the word author purposely, and with some special and definite meaning. And then, with supreme disdain, taking no more account of him than of a chattel or hopeless imbecile or drunkard, she walked freely up and down, and jeered:
»Or was it that I hit you too hard? What are you whining about?«
He made no reply.
»My author says that I'm a hard fighter. Perhaps he has a finer face. However hard one smacks your cheeks you seem to feel nothing! Oh, I've knocked lots of people's mouths about, but I've never been so sorry for anyone as for my author. 'Hit away', he says, 'I deserve it.' A drunken slobberer! It's disgusting hitting him. He's a brute. But I hurt my hand on your face. Here—kiss it where it smarts!«
She thrust her hand to his lips and withdrew it swiftly. Her excitement was increasing. For some minutes it seemed as though she were choking in a fever; she rubbed her breast, breathing deeply through her open mouth, and unconsciously gripped the window curtains. And twice she stopped as she went to and fro to pour out a glass of cognac. The second time he remarked in a surly tone.
»You said you didn't drink alone.«
»I have no consistency, my dear,« she replied, quite simply. »I'm drugged, and unless I drink at intervals I stifle ... This revives me.«