“We could manage. I might even gradually start to pay off your Mamma’s debts. A little flat. Two weeks at the seashore. A cook....”
He spoke very seriously, with each item stroked the slender pearly hand he had taken.
Marcia withdrew it. “Don’t be a silly, Tom.”
He jumped up. He drew her after him: he held her close, kissed her throat.
“It is not impossible. I want you, Marcia.”
“You have had me.”
“I have never had you.” He thrust her away and walked to where she first had faced him. “You know I have never had you, Marcia. How can you—oh——!” He threw up his arms and stopped.
Marcia came closer. “Tom,” she said, “what do you really want of me?”
“Yourself....” He paused. “But without the sense that I am harming you. Yourself, without restraint.”
“Why did you leave me, Tom?”