There was a soft, voluptuous promise to himself in the words. She was chilled but arrogant.

‘Ha!’ she said. ‘I am not afraid of your threats!’ She denied herself to him, she kept her room rigidly private to herself. But he waited on, in a curious patience, belonging to his yearning for her.

‘In the end,’ he said to himself with real voluptuous promise, ‘when it reaches that point, I shall do away with her.’ And he trembled delicately in every limb, in anticipation, as he trembled in his most violent accesses of passionate approach to her, trembling with too much desire.

She had a curious sort of allegiance with Loerke, all the while, now, something insidious and traitorous. Gerald knew of it.