He paused, and she saw his face pale and working with passion; his small eyes blazing behind their thick lenses; his hands clenched by his sides, but not tightly, the fingers twitching nervously; his whole body trembling and shaken beyond control.
She was conscious of an incongruous, unnatural, inexplicable feeling of pity for him.
"Please be a good boy," she pleaded, "and go away."
"No, I'm damned if I do. You asked me up here—I know now—just to tease me. But that's no good. I won't go!" He advanced another pace, his tone and manner changing. "O Joan, Joan!" he begged—"don't treat me so cruelly! You know I'm mad about you. Doesn't that mean anything to you, more than a chance to torment me? My God! what kind of a woman are you? I can't stand this. Flesh and blood couldn't. I'm only human. All this week I've kept away from you simply because I realized what you were—"
"What am I?" Joan cut in quickly.
Fowey choked again, with a gesture of impotent exasperation.
"You," he almost shouted—"you're the woman I love and who's driving me mad—mad I tell you!"
"Hubert! You mean that? You really love me?"
"You know I do. You know I'm crazy about you. Haven't you seen it from the first?"
Hesitating, Joan experienced a sense of one in deep waters. There was a sound as that of distant surf in her ears. All through her body pulses were throbbing madly.