As she remained silent, he was stung by the expression on her face which he did not understand.  He went on vindictively snatching up to drive home his thrust the sharpest and cruelest weapon he could conceive, “Perhaps you find you are too old?”

At this she looked away from him for an instant, up to the lower branches of the oak under which they stood.  She seemed to reflect, and when she brought her eyes back to his, she answered, “Yes, I think that is it.  I find I am too old.”

He was for years to ponder on the strangeness of the accent with which she said this, without regret, with that damnable gentleness as though to hide from him a truth he might find hard to bear, or be incapable of understanding.

How could any woman say “I find I am too old” with that unregretting accent?  Was it not the worst of calamities for all women to grow old?  What was there left for a woman when she grew old?

But how preposterous, her saying that, she who stood there in the absolute perfection of her bloom!

He found that he did not know what to say next.  That tolerant acquiescence of hers in what he had meant to sting intolerably . . . it was as though he had put all his force into a blow that would stun, and somehow missing his aim, encountering no resistance, was toppling forward with the impetus of his own effort.  He recovered himself and looked at her, choking, “You don’t mean . . .” he began challenging her incredulously, and could go no further.

For she nodded, her eyes on his with that singular expression in them which he did not understand, and which he intensely resented.

He was so angry that for a moment he could not speak.  He was aware of nothing but anger.  “It’s impotence and weakness on your part, that’s all it is!” he cast out at her, hating her savagely as he spoke, “no matter what fine words you’ve decided to call it to cloak your own feebleness.  It’s the littleness of the vital spark in you.  Or it’s cowardly inertia, turning from the real fulfilment that calls for you, back to chips and straw because you are used to them.  It’s being a small, poor, weak, cowed creature, traditional-minded, instead of the splendid, brave, living woman I thought I loved.  I am glad to leave you behind, to have no more of you in my life.  I have no use for thin-blooded cowards.”

She made no answer at all, not a word.  His flaming eyes fell away from her face.  He turned from her abruptly and walked rapidly away, not looking back.

Then he found he had ceased to advance rapidly, had stopped and was standing still, wrung in so dreadful a pain that his hand was at his side as though he had been stabbed.  With no thought, with no awareness of what he was doing, he ran back to her, his hands outstretched, suffering so that he must have help.  He did not mean to speak, did not know what he was to say . . . he cried out to her, “Marise, Marise . . .  I love you! What can I do?”