“There’s time enough,” said Bradshaw. “This is what I want to say. You are a lonely woman and I am a lonely man, and only an iron bar divides us. It’s the iron bar of convention, of insincerity, of superstition. It seems so difficult to cross. But you see one step is enough. I want you to take that step—to-night.”
Clare answered him in a whisper.
“Go away!”
“I am hungry for you,” said Bradshaw, with a thrill in his voice. “I am hungry for your love. And you are hungry for me. I have seen it in your eyes. You have the look of a famished woman. Famished for love. Famished for comradeship.”
Clare raised her hands despairingly.
“If you have any pity, go away.”
“I have no pity. Because pity is weakness, and I hate weakness.”
“You are brutal,” said Clare.
He laughed at her. He seemed to like those words.
“Yes, I have the brutality of manhood. Man is a brute, and woman likes the brute in him because that is his nature, and woman wants the natural man. That is why you want me, Clare. You can’t deny it.”