But, however that may be, and as I've said before, it
has got to stop, now, at once."
If it didn't, he continued silently, he wouldn't be eternally
responsible for himself; never a patient man, what might follow the end
of his endurance was unpredictable. His feeling toward the woman before
him was shifting, as well; the indifference was becoming bitterness;
the bitterness glittered, like mica, with points of hatred. He felt
this, like an actual substance, a jelly-like poison, in his blood,
affecting his body and mind. It bred in him a refined brutality, an
ingenious cruelty. "A mirror would shut you up quicker than anything
else," he informed her; "you look like a woman of sixty--go somewhere
and fix your face."
"It doesn't surprise me you are insulting," she replied, "but I didn't
expect it quite so soon. I thought you might hide what you really were
a little longer; it seemed to me you might try to keep something. But I
guess it's better to have it all done with at once, and to meet the
worst."
"You talk as though there were no one but you in this," he said
concisely; "and that I didn't matter. You'll find that I have a little
to say. Here it is: I am tired of your suspicions and questions and
insinuations. You haven't any idea of marriage except as a bed-room
farce. You're so pure that you imagine more indecencies in a day than I
could get through with in five years.
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