It was a long while before she had hurt him sufficiently to make him understand....
Cyprian, savagely covering sheets of office paper with close paragraphs he constantly re-read and re-wrote, heard her hurried step along the drive and dully noticed that she had not stopped to sneck the gate and, therefore, the waterman's white cow would get at the lilies again. He supposed Maur had been talking more Art drivel. Why could he not find courage to check this nonsensical friendship once and for all? She did not really consider that he had no right to object.
His pen went flying as she flung herself against his chair. She curled up on his knees, hiding her face in his shoulder and breathing quickly as if she had been running. He glanced abstractedly at a running rivulet of ink down a confidential report. His relief to find her within reach again, and to know the cold mutual politeness of the last three days ended, was so great that all anxiety and doubt went out in thankful amusement at the unexpectedness of her. He wondered if she had blown up the whole Station with an experimental bomb, or whether she had merely been cut by the Leading Lady. At any rate, he was there to fill the post of Whipping Boy, and—Heavens—how willingly!
"Ferlie," he said, half-stifled by those dear slender arms, "What have you been doing?"
"Oh, Cyprian, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. Just go on forgiving me hard. You have proved yourself so ghastlily in the right. Some men exist who are not ready for toleration of their weaknesses and sympathy in their sorrows. Sooner or later, they misunderstand what you offer them and turn into Circe's beasts—and blame your attitude for the change.... I suppose he had some reason to say I'd asked for it; but I didn't know...."
He took her flushed face between his palms and turned it round.
"Did he say that?"
"Yes. And more. Much more. But it was what he did that matters.
"Go on."
"He caught hold of me and held me against him and kissed me ... all over ... I thought I had done with that brand of kisses for ever. And he wouldn't let me move. And at last I got a chance to b-bite ... and, oh, Cyprian, it was all so hopelessly vulgar! I'm bruised with the smirch of it. I'll never leave the house again till I die, unless you are with me to tell me whom I can safely speak to. I'll never trust my wits, henceforth, beyond the front gate. I—what are you laughing at? Don't laugh! Why are you finding it funny, when I only want you to wash me and—and comfort me?"