ought you were a man of sense."

"Thanks," said Gombauld.

"Be a little objective," Anne went on. "Can't you see that you're simply
externalising your own emotions? That's what you men are always doing;
it's so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for some
woman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her
of luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You
have the mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate
of strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent as
the strawberries and cream."

"Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case," said
Gombauld, without looking up.

Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. "I'm at a loss to
know whether you're more silly or more rude."

After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began to speak
again. "And then there's Denis," he said, renewing the conversation as
though it had only just been broken off. "You're playing the same game
with him. Why can't you leave that wretched young man in peace?"

Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. "It's perfectly
untrue about Denis," she said indignantly. "I never dreamt of playing
what you beautifully call the same game with him." Recovering her calm,
she added in her ordinary cooing voice and with her exacerbating smile,
"You've become very protective towards poor Denis all of a sudden."

"I have," Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow a little too
solemn. "I don't like to see a young man..."

"...being whirled along the road to ruin," said Anne, continuing his
sentence for him. I admire your sentiments and, believe me, I share
them."

She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said about Denis. It
happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might have some slight
ground for his reproaches. But Denis--no, she had never flirted with
Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She became somewhat pensive.

Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of an unsatisfied
desire, which, before, had distracted his mind, making work impossible,
seemed now to have converted itself into a kind of feverish energy. When
it was finished, he told himself, the portrait would be diabolic. He was
painting her in the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting.
Seated sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair