"Of course I lied. You wouldn't have come to me if I hadn't."

"You told me you didn't care for her."

He had met that with his "Well--what did you want?"

She went over and over it, turning it round and round to see if there was
any sort of light it would look a bit better in. She had been going to
give him up so beautifully. The end of it was to have been wonderful,
quiet, like a heavenly death, so that you would get a thrill out of that
beauty when you remembered. All the beauty of it from the beginning,
taken up and held together, safe at the end. You wouldn't remember
anything else. And he had killed it, with his conscience, suddenly sick,
whining, slobbering, vomiting remorse--Turning on her.

"I can't think what you wanted with me. Why couldn't you have let
me alone!"

Her own voice, steady and hard. "If you feel dirty, go and wash yourself
outside. Don't try and rub it off on me. I want to keep clean."

"Isn't it a bit too late?"

"Not if you clear out at once. This minute." He called her "a cruel
little devil."

She could forgive him for that. She could forgive him ending it in any
beastly way he liked, provided he did end it. But not last night. To come
crawling back, three months after, wanting to begin again. Thinking it