"This is rather extraordinary, isn't it?" she said. This might be interpreted in a number of ways.
"Yes, it is," he said, exactly matching her tone.
"Did you enjoy the evening?" It seemed almost certain that he would answer tenderly, "I'm enjoying this part of it."
That sounded all right, she thought. His voice was as cool as her own. She could let things go and give herself up to enjoying the night and the moon and the motion and the damp air on her face and arms. She felt utterly at peace. Presently he turned from the highroad down a lane so untraveled that the low branches came swishing into her lap; they came out on a headland overlooking the Sound. Over the water the mist was only a thickening of the atmosphere which made the lights of a city across the water look like globes of yellow light in contrast to the clear red and white of a lighthouse in the foreground. He leaned forward and turned off the engine and lights.
Lydia found that she was trembling a little, which seemed strange, for she felt unemotional and still. And then all of a sudden she recognized that she was really waiting--waiting to feel her cheek against his rough frieze coat and his lips against hers. It was not exactly that she wanted it, but that it was inevitable--simple--not her choice--something that must be. This was an experience that she had never had before. In the silence she felt their mutual understanding rising like a tide. She had never felt so at one with any human being as with this stranger.
Suddenly he moved--but not toward her. She saw with astonishment that he was turning the switch, touching the self starter, and the next instant backing the car out. The divine moment was gone. She would never forgive him.
They drove back in silence, except for her occasional directions about the road. Her jaw was set like a little vise. Never again, she was saying to herself, would she allow herself to be a passenger. Hereafter she would control. It didn't matter what happened to you, if you were master of your own emotions. She remembered once that the husband of a friend of hers had caught her in his arms in the anteroom of a box at the opera during the darkness of a Wagnerian performance. She had felt like frozen steel--so sure of herself that she hardly hated the man--she felt more inclined to laugh at him. But this man who hadn't touched her, left her feeling outraged, humiliated--because she had wanted him to kiss her, to crush her to him----