"And why had you to fight so hard?"
"Because the thing was stronger than myself, and I wouldn't be beaten. Because I hated myself for caring for you, as I hate myself now for not caring."
In her blind pity she laid her fingers on his trembling hand. She who used to drop his hand as if it had been flame, she should have known better than to touch him now.
He looked at her with hot hungry eyes. His brain in its feverish intensity took note of trifles—the tortuous pattern of the braid on her gown, the gold sleeve-links at her wrists, the specks of brine that glistened on her temples under the wind-woven strands of her black hair; it recorded these things and remembered them afterward. And all the time the boat came nearer, and the slow, steady stroke of the oars measured his hour by minutes, till the sweat, sprung from the labor and passion of his nerves, stood out in beads on his forehead.
He looked at her; and her beauty, the beauty born of her freedom and abounding life, the beauty he worshiped, was implacable; the divinity in it remained untouched by his desire.
"You needn't care," he said desperately. "I'm not asking you to care; I'm not asking you to give me your love, but only to take mine."
She smiled. "I'm not so dishonest as to borrow what I can't repay."
His voice was monotonous in its iteration. "I'm not talking about repayment; I'll risk that. I don't want you to borrow it. I want you to take it, keep it, spend it any way you like, and—throw it away when you can't do anything more with it."
"And never return it? Ah, my friend! we can't do these things."
She dropped into the deck-chair, exhausted with the discussion. Her brow was heavy with thought; she was still racking her brains to find some argument that would appease him.