“It’s a fact!” he said. “Anything for a bit of warmheartedness. But the women don’t like it. Even you don’t really like it. You like good, sharp, piercing cold-hearted fucking, and then pretending it’s all sugar. Where’s your tenderness for me? You’re as suspicious of me as a cat is of a dog. I tell you it takes two even to be tender and warmhearted. You love fucking all right: but you want it to be called something grand and mysterious, just to flatter your own self-importance. Your own self-importance is more to you, fifty times more, than any man, or being together with a man.”

“But that’s what I’d say of you. Your own self-importance is everything to you.”

“Ay! Very well then!” he said, moving as if he wanted to rise. “Let’s keep apart then. I’d rather die than do any more cold-hearted fucking.”

She slid away from him, and he stood up.

“And do you think I want it?” she said.