they could not say good-bye and part. Ann hung on sullenly, angrily, in a kind of stubborn silence, saying little, ordering brandy at the bars and cafés, champagne in the night resorts, drinking little herself, sitting by him in a sullen, angry silence while he drank.
He was like a maddened animal: he raved, stormed, shouted, cursed, implored, entreated, reviled her and made love to her at once—there was no sense, or reason, or coherence in anything he said: it came out of him in one tortured expletive, the urge of the baffled touch, that conflict of blind love and hate and speechless agony, in his tormented spirit:
“Oh, Ann!… You lovely bitch!… You big, dark, dumb, lovely, sullen Boston bitch!… Oh, you bitch! You bitch!” he groaned, and seizing her hand, he caught it to him and said desperately, “Ann, Ann, I love you!… You’re the greatest… grandest… best… most beautiful girl that ever lived… Ann! Look at me—you big, ox-dumb brute…. Oh, you bitch…. You Boston bitch…. Will it never come out of you?… Won’t you ever let it come?… Can’t it be thawed, melted, shaken loose?… Oh, you dumb, dark, sullen, lovely bitch… is there nothing there?… is this all you are?… Oh, Ann, you sweet, dumb wretch if you only knew how much I love you—”
“God!” she cried, with her quick, short and angry laugh that gave her face its sudden, radiant tenderness, its indescribable loveliness and purity, “—God! But you’re the gallant lover, aren’t you? First you love me, then you hate me, then I’m a dumb, sullen Boston bitch, and then a wretch and then the grandest and most beautiful girl that ever lived! God, you’re wonderful, you are!” She laughed bitterly. “You say such charming things.”
“Oh, you bitch!” he groaned miserably. “You big, sweet, dumb, and lovely bitch—Ann, Ann, for God’s sake, speak to me, talk to me!” He seized her hand and shook it frantically. “Say just one word to show me you’re alive—that you’ve got one single atom of life and love and beauty in you. Ann, Ann, —look at me! In God’s name, tell me, what are you? Is there nothing there? Have you nothing in you? For Christ’s sake, try to say a single, living word—for Christ’s sake, try to show me that you’re worth it, that it’s not all death and codfish, Boston, Back Bay, and cold fishes’blood”—he raved on incoherently.
“Oh! Boston and cold fishes’blood, my eye!” she muttered, with an angry flush in her face.
“And you?—What are you?” he jeered. “For God’s sake, what kind of
