"We must find out what has happened to us," he went on, speaking with
difficulty out of the turmoil of his being. "We are not young," he
repeated stupidly; "and not foolish. We won't let ourselves be carried
away beyond--beyond return."
"You are so wise," she assented, with an entire honesty of intention;
but her phrase mocked him ferociously.
The tide of his own emotion was gathering around him with the force of
a sea like that of which she had already, vividly, spoken. There was
damned little of what could be recognized as admissible wisdom in him.
Instead of that he was being inundated by a recklessness of desire that
reached Savina's desperate indifference to what, however threatening,
might overtake her. He couldn't, he hadn't the inclination to, do less.
Reaching up, she drew her fingers down his sleeves until they rested in
his gripping hands. Her palms clung to his, and then she broke away
from him:
"I want to be outraged!" Her low ringing cry seemed suppressed,
deadened, as though the damask and florid gilt and rosewood, now
inexpressibly shocked, had combined to muffle the expression, the
agony, of her body. Even Lee Randon was appalled before the nakedness
left by the tearing away of everything imposed upon her. She should
have said that, he realized, unutterably sad, long ago, to William
Grove. But, instead, she had told him; and, whatever the consequences
might be, he must meet them.
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