She was quite determined now that there should be no parting between him and her. But the ways and means were still to settle.

“Did you hate Bertha Coutts?” she asked him.

“Don’t talk to me about her.”

“Yes! You must let me. Because once you liked her. And once you were as intimate with her as you are with me. So you have to tell me. Isn’t it rather terrible, when you’ve been intimate with her, to hate her so? Why is it?”

“I don’t know. She sort of kept her will ready against me, always, always: her ghastly female will: her freedom! A woman’s ghastly freedom that ends in the most beastly bullying! Oh, she always kept her freedom against me, like vitriol in my face.”

“But she’s not free of you even now. Does she still love you?”