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rowed voice—‘tell me what it is that fascinates you in him.’
‘I am not fascinated,’ she said, with cold repelling inno-
cence.
‘Yes, you are. You are fascinated by that little dry snake,
like a bird gaping ready to fall down its throat.’
She looked at him with black fury.
‘I don’t choose to be discussed by you,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter whether you choose or not,’ he replied,
‘that doesn’t alter the fact that you are ready to fall down
and kiss the feet of that little insect. And I don’t want to
prevent you—do it, fall down and kiss his feet. But I want to
know, what it is that fascinates you—what is it?’
She was silent, suffused with black rage.
‘How DARE you come brow-beating me,’ she cried, ‘how
dare you, you little squire, you bully. What right have you
over me, do you think?’
His face was white and gleaming, she knew by the light
in his eyes that she was in his power—the wolf. And because
she was in his power, she hated him with a power that she
wondered did not kill him. In her will she killed him as he
stood, effaced him.
‘It is not a question of right,’ said Gerald, sitting down
on a chair. She watched the change in his body. She saw his
clenched, mechanical body moving there like an obsession.
Her hatred of him was tinged with fatal contempt.
‘It’s not a question of my right over you—though I HAVE
some right, remember. I want to know, I only want to know
what it is that subjugates you to that little scum of a sculptor
downstairs, what it is that brings you down like a humble

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