Part Four - Marise Looks and Sees What is There

She did not seem tacitly or otherwise to deny his right to know, but
she seemed to have no words for it, continuing to look at him silently,
intently, with no hostility, with a sort of steady, wondering attention
in her face, usually so sensitively changing. He felt a resentment at
its quiet, at its lack of that instant responsiveness to his look which
had given him such moments of exquisite pleasure, which had been her
own, her wonderful gift to him. She was looking at him now as she might
have looked at any one else, merely in order to see what was there.

Well, he would show her what was there! The will to conquer rose high
and strong in him, with an element of fierceness it had not had before
because no resistance had called it out. He did not show this, indeed
only allowed it the smallest corner of his consciousness, keeping all
the rest tautly on the alert for the first indication of an opening, for
the first hint of where to throw his strength.

But standing in suspense on the alert was the last rôle he could long
endure, and in a moment, when she did not answer, he took a step towards
her, towering above her, his hands on her shoulders, pouring out with a
hot sense of release all his longing into the cry, "Marise, Marise my
own, what has happened to you?"