t. She knew her life trembled on the edge of an
abyss. But she was curiously sure of her footing. She knew her cunning
could outwit him.

She trembled, as she stood in her room, with excitement and awful
exhilaration. She knew she could outwit him. She could depend on her
presence of mind, and on her wits. But it was a fight to the death, she
knew it now. One slip, and she was lost. She had a strange, tense,
exhilarated sickness in her body, as one who is in peril of falling
from a great height, but who does not look down, does not admit the
fear.

'I will go away the day after tomorrow,' she said.

She only did not want Gerald to think that she was afraid of him, that
she was running away because she was afraid of him. She was not afraid
of him, fundamentally. She knew it was her safeguard to avoid his
physical violence. But even physically she was not afraid of him. She
wanted to prove it to him. When she had proved it, that, whatever he
was, she was not afraid of him; when she had proved THAT, she could
leave him forever. But meanwhile the fight between them, terrible as
she knew it to be, was inconclusive. And she wanted to be confident in
herself. However many terrors she might have, she would be unafraid,
uncowed by him. He could never cow her, nor dominate her, nor have any
right over her; this she would maintain until she had proved it. Once
it was proved, she was free of him forever.

But she had not proved it yet, neither to him nor to herself. And this
was what still bound her to him. She was bound to him, she could not
live beyond him. She sat up in bed, closely wrapped up, for many hours,
thinking endlessly to herself. It was as if she would never have done
weaving the great provision of her thoughts.

'It isn't as if he really loved me,' she said to herself. 'He doesn't.
Every woman he comes across he wants to make her in love with him. He
doesn't even know that he is doing it. But there he is, before every
woman he unfurls his male attractiveness, displays his great
desirability, he tries to make every woman think how wonderful it would
be to have him for a lover. His very ignoring of the women is part of
the game. He is never UNCONSCIOUS of them. He should have been a
cockerel, so he could strut before fifty females, all his subjects. But
really, his Don Juan does NOT interest me. I could play Dona Juanita a
million times better than he plays Juan. He bores me, you know. His
maleness bores me. Noth