This afternoon, if ever, within the last few hours, if at all, he had
acted in a way to justify that horror and that opinion. He had treated
her--brutally; he had insulted and threatened her, had almost struck her.
And yet--and yet Madame felt that she had moved so far from the point
which she had once occupied that the old attitude was hard to understand.
Hardly could she believe that it was on this man, much as she still
dreaded him, that she had looked with those feelings of repulsion.
She was still gazing at him with eyes which strove to see two men in one,
when he turned from the window. Absorbed in thought, she had forgotten
her occupation, and stood, the towel suspended in her half-dried hands.
Before she knew what he was doing he was at her side; he bade the woman
hold the bowl, and he rinsed his hands. Then he turned, and without
looking at the Countess, he dried his hands on the farther end of the
towel which she was still using.
She blushed faintly. A something in the act, more intimate and more
familiar than had ever marked their intercourse, set her blood running
strangely. When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his
spur-leathers, she stepped forward.
"I will do it!" she murmured, acting on a sudden and unaccountable
impulse. And as she knelt, she shook her hair about her face to hide its
colour.
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