But you must keep away.''
He bent his head. ``Then I'll go 'way off somewhere.
I can't bear being here in New York and not seeing
you. And when I've been away a year or so, perhaps
I'll get control of myself again.''
Going away!--to try to forget!--no doubt, to
succeed in forgetting! Then this was her last chance.
``Must I go, Mildred? Won't you relent?''
``I don't love you--and I never can.'' She was
deathly white and trembling. She lifted her eyes to
begin a retreat, for her courage had quite oozed away.
He was looking at her, his face distorted with a mingling
of the passion of desire and the passion of jealousy.
She shrank, caught at the back of a chair for
support, felt suddenly strong and defiant. To be this
man's plaything, to submit to his moods, to his
jealousies, to his caprices--to be his to fumble and caress,
his to have the fury of his passion wreak itself upon
her with no response from her but only repulsion and
loathing--and the long dreary hours and days and
years alone with him, listening to his commonplaces,
often so tedious, forced to try to amuse him and to keep
him in a good humor because he held the purse-
strings--
``Please go,'' she said.
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