She
remembered that even as his eyes blazed hatred at her, he looked at her, at
her neck, her bare arms, with the baffled desire of brute passion. She did
not fully understand the look, but she felt that it was a degradation far
greater than his insulting words.
She slipped, almost skulked to her room, her eyes down, her face in a
burning flush, her scarf drawn tightly about her neck. As her door closed
behind her, she fell upon her bed and began to sob hysterically. She
started up with a scream to find her cousin standing beside her.
"I'm so sorry. Forgive me." Mrs. Carnarvon's voice had lost its wonted
levity. "I saw that you were in trouble and followed. I knocked and I
thought I heard you answer. What is it, Marie? May I ask? Can I do
anything?"
Marian drew her down to the bed and buried her face in her lap. "Oh, I feel
so unclean," she said. "It was--Teddy. Would you believe it, Jessie, Teddy!
I looked on him as a brother. And he showed me that he was not my
friend--that he didn't even love me--that he--oh, I shall never forget the
look in his eyes. He made me feel like a--like a _thing_."
Mrs. Carnarvon smothered a smile. "Of course Teddy's a brute," she said. "I
thought you knew. He's a domesticated brute, like most of the men and some
of the women.
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