She knew what he was going to swear and she stopped him.
"I did see that you thought you cared for me. If you'd been quite sure you'd have told me. You wouldn't have waited. You're not quite sure now. You're only telling me now because I'm going away. If I hadn't said I was going away you'd never have told me. You'd just have gone on waiting till you were quite sure."
She had irritated him now beyond endurance.
"Gwenda," he said savagely, "you're enough to drive a man mad."
"You've told me that before, anyhow. Don't you see that I should go on driving you mad? Don't you see how unhappy you'd be with me, how impossible it all is?"
She laughed. It was marvelous to her how she achieved that laugh. It was as if she had just thought of it and it came.
"I can see," he said, "that you don't care for me."
He had given himself into her hands—hands that seemed to him diabolic in their play.
"Did I ever say I cared?"
"Well—of all the women—you are——! No, you didn't say it."