She released her wrists and shot a curious, inexplicable look at him.
"I don't understand you," she said. "You can be so generous and high-minded and you can be so unkind and insolent to me."
"Insolent?"
"Yes. You meant it insolently when you spoke of Oswald as my husband. You've done it before, too. Why do you? Do you really want to hurt me? Because you know he isn't my husband except by title. He may never be."
"All right," he said. "I'm sorry I was offensive. I'm just tired of this mystery, I suppose. It's a hopeless sort of affair for me. I can't make you love me; you're married, besides. It's too much for me—I can't cope with it, Steve.... So I won't ever bother you again with importunities. I'll go my own way."
"Very well," she said in an even voice.
She nodded to him and went out, saying as she passed:
"There'll be tea at five, if you care for any." And left him planted.
Which presently enraged him, and he began to pace the studio, pondering on the cruelty, insensibility and injustice of that devilish sex which had created man as a convenience.
"The thing to do," he said savagely to himself, "is to exterminate the last trace of love for her, tear it out, uproot it, trample on it without remorse——"