“How can you make me suffer, you baby?” she asked.
“Well, I can. Woman have their weapons, and men have theirs. You’ve made a man of me. I know a lot of things I didn’t know last week. Among others, I know that you couldn’t have been as you have been unless I had attracted you pretty strongly. You are”—he went on, with the green coolness that sat so oddly on his tense young face—“pretty near to loving me at this moment.”
“That is not true.”
“Oh, yes, it is, Lady Harden. It’s because I am young, and big, and—good looking. These things count for you as well as for us. And you are thirty. I read a book the other day about a woman of thirty. Thirty is young enough, but thirty-five isn’t, and—thirty-five is coming.”
Her eyes closed for an instant. “You are brutal.”
“Yes, I am very brutal. You were brutal, too. You see, I remembered that novel while I was dressing for dinner, and it taught me a lot. You and it have made me rather wise between you. Well, I love you,” he went on, suddenly fierce, “and you must love me. Dagny!”
Bending, he kissed her.
She herself had killed his boyish shyness, his youthful hesitation, all the boy’s natural fear of repulsion.
He was the man, she the woman. He dominated, she submitted; he was strong, she was weak; he was big, she was small.
“Oh, why——” she stammered, as he released her.