She sprang up.
'Let me go from here. I wish I'd never seen you. I don't know what you've
done with me.'
'Go by all means if you choose,' he answered.
He opened the door, so that she might see he used no compulsion, and
stood lazily at the threshold, with a hateful smile on his face. There
was something terrible in his excessive bulk. Rolls of fat descended from
his chin and concealed his neck. His cheeks were huge, and the lack of
beard added to the hideous nakedness of his face. Margaret stopped as she
passed him, horribly repelled yet horribly fascinated. She had an immense
desire that he should take her again in his arms and press her lips with
that red voluptuous mouth. It was as though fiends of hell were taking
revenge upon her loveliness by inspiring in her a passion for this
monstrous creature. She trembled with the intensity of her desire. His
eyes were hard and cruel.
'Go,' he said.
She bent her head and fled from before him. To get home she passed
through the gardens of the Luxembourg, but her legs failed her, and
in exhaustion she sank upon a bench.
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