He must not suspect!
Already, with the consciousness of her love for this man, of that
something rapturous and profound going beyond the mere embrace, there
was born in her a woman's innate mistrust of masculinity, of that
seductive strength allied to an absurd, delicate shrinking from the
recognition of the naked necessity of facts, which never yet frightened
a woman worthy of the name. She had no plan; but her mind, quieted down
somewhat by the very effort to preserve outward composure for his sake,
perceived that her behaviour had secured, at any rate, a short period of
safety. Perhaps because of the similarity of their miserable origin in
the dregs of mankind, she had understood Ricardo perfectly. He would
keep quiet for a time now. In this momentarily soothing certitude her
bodily fatigue asserted itself, the more overpoweringly since its cause
was not so much the demand on her strength as the awful suddenness of
the stress she had had to meet. She would have tried to overcome it
from the mere instinct of resistance, if it had not been for Heyst's
alternate pleadings and commands. Before this eminently masculine
fussing she felt the woman's need to give way, the sweetness of
surrender.
"I will do anything you like," she said.
Getting up, she was surprised by a wave of languid weakness that came
over her, embracing and enveloping her like warm water, with a noise in
her ears as of a breaking sea.
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