“Oh, Dakota! I hate you, I hate you! Because I am a woman, I hate you! Because I would live in a house, and not in this endless dreary waste of a dead world, I hate you! Because your very emptiness and solitude are worse than a prison, because the calls of the living things that creep and fly over your endless bosom are more mournful than death itself, I 259 hate you! Because I would be free, because I respect sex, because of the disdain for womanhood that dwells in your crushing silence, I hate––oh, my God, how I hate you!” She threw her arms wide, in a frantic gesture of rebellion.
“I want but this,” she cried passionately: “to be free; free, as I was at home, in God’s country. And I can never be so here––never, never, never! Oh, Annie, I’m homesick––desperately, miserably homesick! I wish to Heaven I were dead!”
Annie Warren, child-woman that she was, was helpless, when face to face with the unusual. Her senses were numbed, paralyzed. One thought alone suggested itself.
“But”––haltingly––“for Steve’s sake––certainly, for him––”
“Stop! As you love me, stop!” Again no suggestion of the histrionic in the passionate voice. “Don’t say that now. I can’t stand it. I––oh, I don’t mean that! Forget that I said it. I’m not responsible this morning. Please leave me.” 260
She was prostrate on the bed at last, her whole body a-tremble.
“But––Mollie––”
“Go––go!” cried Mollie, wildly. “Please go!”
Awed to silence, Annie Warren stared helplessly a moment, then gathered her shawl about her shoulders, and slipped silently away.