turned upon me, a creature at bay. "Why shouldn't I stay here? Why
must I choose between two men? I want neither of you. I want myself. I'm
not a thing. I'm a human being. I'm not your thing, Justin--nor yours,
Stephen. Yet you want to quarrel over me--like two dogs over a bone. I
am going to stay here--in my house! It's my house. I made it. Every room
of it is full of me. Here I am!"

She stood there making this magnificently extravagant claim; her eyes
blazing blue, her hair a little dishevelled with a strand across her
cheek.

Both I and Justin spoke together, and then turned in helpless anger upon
one another. I remember that with the clumsiest of weak gestures he bade
me begone from the house, and that I with a now rather deflated
rhetoric answered I would go only with Mary at my side. And there she
stood, less like a desperate rebel against the most fundamental social
relations than an indignant princess, and demanded of us and high
heaven, "Why should I be fought for? Why should I be fought for?"

And then abruptly she gathered her skirts in her hand and advanced.
"Open that door, Stephen," she said, and was gone with a silken whirl
and rustle from our presence.

We were left regarding one another with blank expressions.

Her departure had torn the substance out of our dispute. For the moment
we found ourselves left with a new situation for which there is as yet
no tradition of behavior. We had become actors in that new human comedy
that is just beginning in the world, that comedy in which men still
dispute the possession and the manner of the possession of woman
according to the ancient rules, while they on their side are determining
ever more definitely that they will not be possessed....

We had little to say to one another,--mere echoes and endorsements of
our recent declarations. "She must come to me," said I. And he, "I will
save her from that at any cost."

That was the gist of our confrontation, and then I turned about and
walked along the gallery towards the entrance, with Justin following me
slowly. I was full of the wrath of baffled heroics; I turned towards him
with something of a gesture. Down the perspective of the white and empty
gallery he appeared small and perplexed. The panes of the tall French
windows were slashed with rain....

Sec. 11

I forget now absolutely what I may have expected to happen next. I
cannot remember my return to my father's house that day. But I know that
what