With an easy, indolent, and in its indolence supple, feline
movement, she rose from the chair, so provokingly ignoring me now,
that for very rage I held my ground within less than a foot of her.
Leisurely and tranquil, behaving right before me with the ease of a
person alone in a room, she extended her beautiful arms, with her
hands clenched, her body swaying, her head thrown back a little,
revelling contemptuously in a sense of relief, easing her limbs in
freedom after all these days of crouching, motionless poses when
she had been so furious and so afraid.

All this with supreme indifference, incredible, offensive,
exasperating, like ingratitude doubled with treachery.

I ought to have been flattered, perhaps, but, on the contrary, my
anger grew; her movement to pass by me as if I were a wooden post
or a piece of furniture, that unconcerned movement brought it to a
head.

I won't say I did not know what I was doing, but, certainly, cool
reflection had nothing to do with the circumstance that next moment
both my arms were round her waist. It was an impulsive action, as
one snatches at something falling or escaping; and it had no
hypocritical gentleness about it either. She had no time to make a
sound, and the first kiss I planted on her closed lips was vicious
enough to have been a bite.

She did not resist, and of course I did not stop at one. She let
me go on, not as if she were inanimate--I felt her there, close
against me, young, full of vigour, of life, a strong desirable