Page 688 - women-in-love

is only this left, for me to kill her.’ A heavy, overcharged
desire to bring about her death possessed him. She was un-
aware.
‘Hasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Do you think it has been a suc-
cess?’
Again the insult of the flippant question ran through his
blood like a current of fire.
‘It had some of the elements of success, our relationship,’
he replied. ‘It—might have come off.’
But he paused before concluding the last phrase. Even as
he began the sentence, he did not believe in what he was go-
ing to say. He knew it never could have been a success.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘You cannot love.’
‘And you?’ he asked.
Her wide, dark-filled eyes were fixed on him, like two
moons of darkness.
‘I couldn’t love YOU,’ she said, with stark cold truth.
A blinding flash went over his brain, his body jolted. His
heart had burst into flame. His consciousness was gone into
his wrists, into his hands. He was one blind, incontinent de-
sire, to kill her. His wrists were bursting, there would be no
satisfaction till his hands had closed on her.
But even before his body swerved forward on her, a sud-
den, cunning comprehension was expressed on her face,
and in a flash she was out of the door. She ran in one flash
to her room and locked herself in. She was afraid, but confi-
dent. She knew her life trembled on the edge of an abyss. But
she was curiously sure of her footing. She knew her cunning
could outwit him.

688 Women in Love