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Rh impotent; utterly weak and inadequate. Quietly and courteously he had put aside all her carefully-prepared arguments as one puts away childish toys—things which the man-mind had outgrown. He was one of those who hear what they themselves say, not what the other person says. But she had not known it until now, and now it was too late. She shivered in the creeping shadows of that treetop army. Was his masculine mind as much stronger than hers as his masculine muscles were stronger? Even the difference between her light, noiseless step and his swinging tread up the beach, crushing the pebbles and spurning them out under his feet, frightened her. She began to realise for the first time where she stood. She might say "I will not," but she had let another factor into the matter now. And she knew too little of it, of its hidden forces and currents and dynamic powers to be able to guard against it. Besides, her heart was on the side of that factor, although her soul was not.

A little while longer she stood, listening to the wash of the river. Then slowly, and with wet eyes, she went up to her tent.