'You don't want me to.'
'Ah! I do.'
'After I've come all these miles and miles to see you, day after day?'
'I dunna care how many miles you've acome,' said Hazel passionately; 'what for do you do it? Go back to the dark house where you come from, and leave me be!'
Reddin dropped his pathos.
She was sitting on the horsehair sofa, he in an armchair at its head. He flung out one arm and pulled her back so that her head struck the mahogany frame of the sofa.
'None of that!' he said.
He kissed her wildly, and in the kisses repaid himself for all his waiting in the past few weeks. She was crying from the pain of the bump; his kisses hurt her; his shoulder was hard against her breast. She was shaken by strange tremors. She struck him with her clenched hand. He laughed.
'Will you behave yourself? Will you do what I tell you?' he asked.
'I'd be much obleeged,' she said faintly, 'if you'd draw your shoulder off a bit.'