The contraction of his features disappeared.

"I should hate you and forget that I ever loved you," he said slowly.

"You never loved me."

"I never loved you."

Again Unorna laughed, and he joined in her laughter, unintelligently,
as he had done before. She leaned back in her seat, and her face grew
grave. Israel Kafka sat motionless in his chair, staring at her with
unwinking eyes. But his gaze did not disturb her. There was no more
meaning in it than in the expression of a marble statue, far less than
in that of a painted portrait. Yet the man was alive and in the full
strength of his magnificent youth, supple, active, fierce by nature,
able to have killed her with his hands in the struggle of a moment. Yet
she knew that without a word from her he could neither turn his head nor
move in his seat.

For a long time Unorna was absorbed in her meditations. Again and again
the vision of a newer happiness took shape and colour before her, so
clearly and vividly that she could have clasped it and held it and
believed in its reality, as she had done before Israel Kafka had
entered. But there was a doubt now, which constantly arose between her
and it, the dark and shapeless shadow of a reasoning she hated and yet
knew to be strong.

"I must ask him," she said unconsciously.