even you, it is your mere female quality. And I wouldn’t give a straw for your female ego — it’s a rag doll.’

‘Ha!’ she laughed in mockery. ‘That’s all you think of me, is it? And then you have the impudence to say you love me.’

She rose in anger, to go home.

You want the paradisal unknowing,’ she said, turning round on him as he still sat half-visible in the shadow. ‘I know what that means, thank you. You want me to be your thing, never to criticise you or to have anything to say for myself. You want me to be a mere THING for you! No thank you! IF you want that, there are plenty of women who will give it to you. There are plenty of women who will lie down for you to walk over them — GO to them then, if that’s