‘Oh couldn’t I! I did. Oxford seemed to me just a dear stupid old place—out of the world,—a kind of museum—where nobody mattered. Silly, wasn’t it? childish?’ She drew back her head fiercely, as though she defied him to excuse her. ‘I was just amusing myself with it—and with Otto—and with you. And that night, at Magdalen, all the time I was dancing with Otto, I was aiming—abominably—at you! I wanted to provoke you—to pay you back—oh, not for Otto’s sake—not at all!—but just because—I had asked you something—and you had refused. That was what stung me so. And do you suppose I should have cared twopence, unless⸺’
Her voice died away. Her fingers began fidgeting with the arm of the chair, her eyes bent upon them.
He looked at her a moment irresolute, his face working. Then he said huskily—
‘In return—for that—I’ll tell you—I must tell you the real truth about myself. I don’t think you know me yet—and I don’t know myself. I’ve got a great brutal force in me somewhere—that wants to brush everything—that hinders me—or checks me—out of my path. I don’t know that I can control it—that I can make a woman happy. It’s an awful risk for you. Look at that poor fellow!’ He flung out his hand towards that distant room whence came every now and then a fresh wave of music. ‘I didn’t intend to do him any bodily harm⸺’
‘Of course not! It was an accident!’ cried Connie passionately.
‘Perhaps—strictly. But I did mean somehow to crush him—to make it precious hot for him—just because he’d got in my way. My will was like a steel spring in a machine—that had been let go. Suppose I felt like that again, towards⸺’
‘Towards me?’ Connie opened her eyes very wide, puckering her pretty brow.
‘Towards someone—or something—you care for. We are certain to disagree about heaps of things.’
‘Of course we are. Quite certain!’
‘I tell you again,’ said Falloden, speaking with a strong simplicity and sincerity that were all the time undoing the impression he honestly desired to make—‘It’s a big risk for you—a temperament like mine—and you ought to think it over seriously. And then’—he paused abruptly in front of her, his hands in his pockets—‘Why should you—you’re so young!—start life with any burden on you? Why should you? It’s preposterous! I must look after Otto all his life.’