, Milly felt physical fear; she thought once
more of insanity. There was a silence; then she spoke again.

"Put me on to the bank here, please. I'll walk back."

"I shall let you go when I choose," returned he, in a grating voice. "I
have something to say to you first."

He paused and his frown darkened upon her. "You asked me how I 'dared.'
Dare! Do you take me for a dog, to be chained up and tantalized with
nice bits, and hardly allowed to whine for them? I say, how dare you
entice me with your beauty--it's decked out now for me--entice me with
all your beguiling ways, your pretence of longing to go away and to live
the free life in the East as I live it? Now, when you've made me want
you--what else have you been aiming at? You pretend to be surprised, you
pretend even to yourself, to be dreadfully shocked. What damned humbug!
With us only the dancing-girls venture to play such tricks as you do,
and they daren't go too far, because the men are men and wear knives.
But here you proper women, with your weakness unnaturally protected, you
go about pretending you don't know there's such a thing in the world as
desire--oh, of course not!--and all the while you're deliberately
exciting it and playing upon it."

Mildred had been right in saying that the gentle Milly could be in a
rage; though it was a thing that had happened to her only once or twice
before since her childhood. It happened now. Anger, burning anger,
extinguished the fear that had held her silent while he was speaking.

"It's false!" she cried, with burning face and blazing eyes. "It's
disgraceful of you to say such things--it's degrading for me to have to
hear them. I will get away from you, if I have to jump into the river."

She started forward, but Maxwell, with his tall, lithe body and long
arms, had a great reach. He leaned forward and his iron hands were upon
her shoulders, forcing her back.

"Don't be a fool," he said, still fierce in eye and voice.

Her lips trembled with fury so that she could hardly speak.

"Do you consider yourself a gentleman?"

He laughed scornfully.

"I don't consider the question at all. I am a man; you are a woman, and
you have presumed to make a plaything of me. You thought you could do it
with impunity because we are civilized, because you are a lady; for
bar-maids and servant-girls do get their throats cut sometimes still.
Don't be frightened, I'm not going to kill you, but I mean to make you
understand for onc