She had been brought up to this sort of thing. It was bred in her.... Marriage was her inevitable game. This very charm she exercised, this subtle, haunting invasion of his senses, what was that but another proof of the harem existence where all influences were forced to serve the ends of sex ...
And she was so maddeningly resigned to taking this general!
A queer hot rage was gaining possession of him. "Oh, well, if you prefer this," he said brutally, with a youthful desire to wreak pain in return for that strange pain which something was inflicting upon him.
A girl who would let him kiss her one night—and on the next inform him that she was giving herself to an unknown—an old Turk.... If she could go like that, to some other's arms and lips ...
He wanted to take her fiercely in his arms and crush her lips against his and then fling her away and say, "Oh, go to him now—if you can!"
And at the same time he wanted to gather her to him as tenderly as if she were a flower he was guarding and tell her that he would protect her against all the world.
He was divided and confused and blindly angry. He felt baffled and frustrated. He was both aching and raging. And yet he was capable of reminding himself, in some corner of his uninvaded mind, that this was undoubtedly the best thing for them both.
What else? For him? For her?
And yet his tongue went on stabbing her.
"If this is what you are determined to do—" he heard himself saying hardly, yet with a hint of deferred finality.