She saw him rushing at her, but she quietly flung back the door of the room.
The long galleries and apartments stretched out before them, as though endlessly. There was something in that vista of ancestral spaciousness that restrained him. He was an impetuous rather than a deliberate ravisher. She walked on very slowly, looking attentively to right and left.
He came up with her:
“You struck me!” he panted, furiously. “I’ll never forgive it, never!”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, with her sweetened voice and smile. “I had to defend myself, you know.”
“Why?”
“Prince,” she said, persuasively, “why all this anger and passion and exasperation? You can be so nice; when I saw you last in Rome you were so charming. We were always such good friends. I enjoyed your conversation and your wit and your good-nature. Now it’s all spoilt.”
“No,” he entreated.
“Yes, it is. You won’t understand me. Your temperament is not in harmony with mine. Don’t you understand? You force me to speak coarsely, because you are coarse yourself.”
“I?”