Quicksand
She wondered if for this she would pay all that she‘d had.
And, suddenly, she didn‘t at all care. She said, lightly, but firmly: “But you see, Herr Olsen, I‘m not for sale. Not to you. Not to any white man. I don‘t at all care to be owned. Even by you.”
The drooping lids lifted. The look in the blue eyes was, Helga thought, like the surprised stare of a puzzled baby. He hadn‘t at all grasped her meaning.
She proceeded, deliberately: “I think you don‘t understand me. What I‘m trying to say is this, I don‘t want you. I wouldn‘t under any circumstances marry you,” and since she was, as she put it, being brutally frank, she added: “Now.”
He turned a little away from her, his face white but composed, and looked down into the gathering shadows in the little park before the house. At last he spoke, in a queer frozen voice: ”You refuse me?”
195
