“You're none too fit, Sue.”
She moved her hands in assert.
“And that's something to be considered seriously. We need you fit.”
She did not answer at once. She would have liked to send him away. She tried to recall the long slow series of events, each dovetailed so intricately into the next that had brought them so close. Her mind—her sense of fairness—told her that he had every right to stand there and talk at her; yet he seemed suddenly and oddly a stranger.
“Suppose,” she said, “we stop discussing me.”
He shook his head. “It's quite time to begin discussing you. It's suppressions, Sue. You've played the Village game with your mind, but you've kept your feelings under. The result is natural enough—your nerves are in a knot. You must let go—trust your emotions.”
“I trust my emotions enough,” said she shortly.
He walked back and forth. “Let's look at this dispassionately, Sue. We can, you and I. Of course I love you—you know that. There have been women enough in my life, but none of them has stirred my blood as you have. Not one. I want you—desperately—every minute—month in, month out. But”—he stood before her again—“if you can't let go with me, I'd almost—surely, yes, I can say it, I'd rather it would be somebody else then. But somebody, something. You're all buttled up. It's dangerous.”
She stirred restlessly.
“You know that as well as I.” He was merciless.