Left alone in her untidy room after Graham's abrupt departure, Anna
Klein was dazed. She stood where he left her, staring ahead. What had
happened meant only one thing to her, that Graham no longer cared about
her, and, if that was true, she did not care to live.

It never occurred to her that he had done rather a fine thing, or that
he had protected her against herself. She felt no particular shame, save
the shame of rejection. In her small world of the hill, if a man gave a
girl valuable gifts or money there was generally a quid pro quo. If the
girl was unwilling, she did not accept such gifts. If the man wanted
nothing, he did not make them. And men who made love to girls either
wanted to marry them or desired some other relationship with them.

She listened to his retreating footsteps, and then began, automatically
to unbutton her thin white blouse. But with the sound of the engine of
his car below she ran to the window. She leaned out, elbows on the sill,
and watched him go, without a look up at her window.

So that was the end of that!

Then, all at once, she was fiercely angry. He had got her into this
scrape, and now he had left her. He had pretended to love her, and all
the time he had meant to do just this, to let her offer herself so he
might reject her. He had been playing with her. She had lost her home
because of him, had been beaten almost insensible, had been ill for
weeks, and now he had driven away, without even looking back.