Looking again
at the couch he perceived that she had not turned, not even moved. With
a shaken, immediately regretted "good-by" he went quickly but without
dignity from the room.
For over a moment Gloria made no sound. Her lips were still curled; her
glance was straight, proud, remote. Then her eyes blurred a little, and
she murmured three words half aloud to the death-bound fire:
"Good-by, you ass!" she said.
PANIC
The man had had the hardest blow of his life. He knew at last what he
wanted, but in finding it out it seemed that he had put it forever
beyond his grasp. He reached home in misery, dropped into an armchair
without even removing his overcoat, and sat there for over an hour, his
mind racing the paths of fruitless and wretched self-absorption. She had
sent him away! That was the reiterated burden of his despair. Instead of
seizing the girl and holding her by sheer strength until she became
passive to his desire, instead of beating down her will by the force of
his own, he had walked, defeated and powerless, from her door, with the
corners of his mouth drooping and what force there might have been in
his grief and rage hidden behind the manner of a whipped schoolboy.
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