She drank the water at a draught, with the avidity of raging
thirst, and let herself fall on the nearest chair, as if utterly
overcome. Her attitude, like certain tones of her voice, had in it
something masculine: the knees apart in the ample wrapper, the
clasped hands hanging between them, her body leaning forward, with
drooping head. I stared at the heavy black coil of twisted hair.
It was enormous, crowning the bowed head with a crushing and
disdained glory. The escaped wisps hung straight down. And
suddenly I perceived that the girl was trembling from head to foot,
as though that glass of iced water had chilled her to the bone.

"What's the matter now?" I said, startled, but in no very
sympathetic mood.

She shook her bowed, overweighted head and cried in a stifled voice
but with a rising inflection:

"Go away! Go away! Go away!"

I got up then and approached her, with a strange sort of anxiety.
I looked down at her round, strong neck, then stooped low enough to
peep at her face. And I began to tremble a little myself.

"What on earth are you gone wild about, Miss Don't Care?"

She flung herself backwards violently, her head going over the back
of the chair. And now it was her smooth, full, palpitating throat
that lay exposed to my bewildered stare. Her eyes were nearly
closed, with only a horrible white gleam under the lids as if she
were dead.