“No,” she answered, with a smile. “Any woman worth her salt handles those sorts of situations, and makes up her own mind. Man proposes, woman disposes. The whole thing is in the woman’s hands: to think otherwise is to insult my sex. Men and women are both pieces in Nature’s game; but Nature is a woman, and she works out her plans through her own sex.”
She sat down upon the stone bench, and, with hands folded, gazed up to the dawning glory of the sunrise. It was as though she were a conscious daughter of Hathor, Mother of all things, looking for guidance in her perplexity. Jim seated himself by her side, and for some time there was silence between them, though his brain seemed to him to be full of the clamour of shackled words and incarcerated emotions.
Her reference to their marriage had pierced his heart as with a sharp sword. He desired to make her his wife more intensely than ever he had desired anything in his life before; yet he was unable to do so. He wanted to possess her, to have the right to protect her, to be able to dedicate his whole entity to her service; yet he was tied hand and foot, and could make no such proposal.
He felt ashamed, exasperated, and thwarted; and suddenly springing to his feet, he swung about on his heel, kicked viciously at the bushes, and swore a round, hearty oath.
“What’s the matter?” she asked in surprise. “Has something stung you?”
He laughed crazily. “Yes, I’m stung all over,” he cried. “There are a hundred serpents with all their flaming fangs in me. I think I’m going mad.”
He paced to and fro, tearing at his hair; and when at length he resumed his seat he seized both her hands in his, and frenziedly kissed her every finger.
“I’m on fire,” he gasped. “I believe my heart is a roaring furnace. I must be full of blazing light inside; and in a few minutes I think I shall drop down dead with longing for you, Monimé. Then you’ll have to bury me; but I tell you there’ll be a volcanic eruption above my grave, and flames will issue forth from my bare bones. I don’t believe Death itself could extinguish me: my love will burst out in fearful torrents of lava, and the whole earth will tremble at my convulsions. I shall come to you again in earthquakes and tidal waves and a falling rain of comets. I shall blow the whole blasted world to smithereens before I go roaring into hell.... That’s how I feel! That’s what you’ve done to me!”