She felt afraid of his anger.
"I didn't mean—"
She dropped her hands from his cloak.
"But haven't I a right?" she began.
She stopped. What was the use of making any claim upon such a man? What was the use of wasting upon him any feeling either of desire or of anger? What was the use? And yet she could not go without some understanding. She could not ride back into the camp by the lake and settle down to virtue, to domesticity with Nigel. Her whole nature cried out for this man imperiously. His strangeness lured her. His splendid physique appealed to her with a power she could not resist. He dominated her by his indifference as well as by his passion. He fascinated her by his wealth, and by his almost Jewish faculty of acquiring. His irony whipped her, his contempt of morality answered to her contempt. His complete knowledge of what she was warmed, soothed, reposed her.
But the thought of his infidelity to her as soon as she was away from him roused in her a sort of madness.
"How am I to see you again?" she said.
And all that she felt for him went naked in her voice.
"How am I to see you again?"
He stood and looked at her.