"And I a man."
"But not for me."
Furiously, with a curse, he caught her in his quivering arms. Before she could prevent him, he had kissed her fiercely. She struggled out of his grasp and slapped his face. He gave another curse and flung out his arms to seize her again, but she drew herself up:
"Prince!" she cried, screaming with laughter. "You surely don't think that you can compel me?"
"Of course I do!"
She gave a disdainful laugh:
"You can not," she said, aloud. "For I refuse and I will not be compelled."
He saw red, he was furious. He had never before been defied and thwarted; he had always conquered.
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.