Kathleen hurried away
from them and took refuge in her own room. Then shutting the door, she
began pacing the floor, fighting once more the battle which during that
last ten days she had often fought with herself and of which she was
thoroughly weary. "Oh," she groaned, wringing her hands, "I cannot do
it. I cannot look at him." She thought of that calm, impassive face
which for the past three months this English gentleman had carried in
all of his intercourse with her, and over against that reserve of
his she contrasted her own passionate abandonment of herself in that
dreadful moment of self-revelation. The contrast caused her to writhe in
an agony of self-loathing. She knew little of men, but instinctively
she felt that in his sight she had cheapened herself and never could she
bear to look at him again. She tried to recall those glances of his
and those broken, passionate words uttered during the moments of his
physical suffering that seemed to mean something more than friendliness.
Against these, however, was the constantly recurring picture of a calm
cold face and of intercourse marked with cool indifference. "Oh, he
cannot love me," she cried to herself. "I am sure he does not love me,
and I just threw myself at him." In her march up and down the room she
paused before her mirror and looked at the face that stared so wildly
back at her. Her eyes rested on the red line of her mouth. "Oh," she
groaned, rubbing vigorously those full red lips. "I just kissed him."
She paused in the rubbing operation, gazed abstractedly into the glass;
a tender glow drove the glare from her eyes, a delicious softness as
from some inner well overflowed her countenance, the red blood surged
up into her white face; she fled from her accusing mirror, buried her
burning face in the pillow in an exultation of rapture. She dared not
put into words the thoughts that rioted in her heart. "But I loved it,
I loved it; I am glad I did." Lying there, she strove to recall in
shameless abandon the sensation of those ecstatic moments, whispering in
passionate self-defiance, "I don't care what he thinks. I don't care if
I was horrid. I am NOT sorry. Besides, he looked so dreadful." But she
was too honest not to acknowledge to herself that not for pity's sake
but for love's she had kissed him, and without even his invitation. Then
once again she recalled the look in his eyes of surprise in the moment
of his returning consciousness, and the little smile t