"Why not? You promised; so it could be once, why not now?"
"Because—because—I never really promised, you know."
"You never promised! You little liar! You may want to break your promise, but you can hardly say you didn't make it."
"I never made it—not of my own free will. You took advantage of me; you forced me into it. You teased me till I said I cared for you, and—I didn't."
"So, then, you told me a lie? You wrote lie after lie to me in your letters for a year?"
She writhed away from him, but he still held her by the wrists, face to face with him, the length of their arms apart.
"Let me go, Vincent! You've no right to hold me in this way. You're hurting my arm!"
Unconsciously his grasp had tightened till the diamond mounted on one of her thread-like bracelets was pressed into her flesh and made it bleed.
"See there!"
He let her go. She sat down and put her pocket-handkerchief to her wrist.