“I see it.”
“And yet—”
“And yet.”
“That,” she observed with composure, “is sheer obstinacy.... Isn't it?”
“It is what I said it was: a hopeful discontent.”
“How can it be?” impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was unnerving her—yet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. “How can you really care for me? Do you actually believe that—devotion—comes like that?”
“Exactly like that.”
“So suddenly? It is impossible!” with a twist of her pretty shoulders.
“How did it come—to you?” he asked between his teeth.
Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands contracted in his—tightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with a little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a minute—more, perhaps, she did not know—she half lay in his arms, her untaught lips cold against his. Lassitude, faint consciousness, then tiny shock on shock came the burning revulsion; and her voice came back, too, sounding strangely to her, a colourless, monotonous voice.