"Oh-h-h-h-h," she crooned, and there was both dismay and delight in the sound. "I didn't want you to say that."
"I didn't want to say it," he muttered. "I didn't mean to say it."
He stared intently before him; his brain felt numb. There was an appalled sense of inner catastrophe, wholly unforeseen, inherent in the impossible situation.
"Oh, why did you have to go and say it?" she wailed in childish resentment. "It spoils everything."
He made no reply. Her intonation changed, became daring and seductive. "It's just a—a—sort of fatherly interest, isn't it?"
"No."
"Now you're angry. But it ought to be."
"Do you want it to be?"
"No, I want it to be—as it is. Yet I don't."