“One requires something unconscious, perhaps. I’ve never met any woman who interested me but was ten times more stupid than I. I want to be alone in those things. I like it to be subterranean as well.”
“Well, I have a cave! I’ve got all that, too. I promise you.”
Her promise was slow and lisping. Tarr once more had to deal with himself.
“I—am—a woman; not a man. That is the fact.” (“Fact” was long and American.) “You don’t realize that—I assure you I am!” She looked at him with a soft, steady smile, that drew his gaze and will into her, rather than imposed itself on him.
“I know.” He felt that there was not much to say.
“No, you know far less than you think. See here; I set out thinking of you in this way—‘Nothing but a female booby will please that man!’ I wanted to please you, but I couldn’t do it on those lines. I’m going to make an effort along my own lines. You are like a youngster who hasn’t got used to the taste of liquor; you don’t like it. You haven’t grown up yet. I want to make you drunk and see what happens!”
She had her legs crossed. Extremely white flesh showed above the black Lisle silk, amidst linen as expensive as the outer cloth was plain. This clever alternating of the humble and gorgeous! Would the body be plain? The provocation was merely a further argument. It said, “Young man, what is there you find in your Bertha that cannot be provided along with superior sense?” His Mohammedan eye did not refuse the conventional bait. His butcher’s sensibility pressed his fancy into professional details. What with her words and her acts he was in a state of strong confusion.
She jumped up and put on her coat, like a ponderous curtain showering down to her heels. Peep-shows were ended!
“Come, let’s have some dinner. I’m hungry. We can discuss this problem better after a beefsteak!” A Porterhouse would have fitted, Tarr thought.
He followed obediently and silently. He was glad that Anastasya had taken things into her hands. The positions that these fundamental matters got him into! Should he allow himself to be overhauled and reformed by this abnormal beauty? He was not altogether enjoying himself. He felt a ridiculous amateur. He was a butcher in his spare moments. This immensely intellectual ox, covered with prizes and pedigrees, overwhelmed him. You required not a butcher, but an artist, for that! He was not an artist in anything but oil-paint. Oil-paint and meat were singularly alike. They had reciprocal potentialities. But he was afraid of being definitely distracted.