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220 "No, Gerrit, I won't, do you hear?"

Her eyes just flashed an angry look of dark reproach. But they laughed and mocked immediately afterwards.

He snatched a towel from the wash-hand-stand:

"Come here," he said.

Her first impulse was a storm of seething rage, a rage as on the last occasion, when she locked herself in and he had to go away. . . . But there was something so cruel and vindictive in his voice, in his glance, in the abrupt movements of his great body that she grew frightened and came:

"Gerrit," she implored, softly, timidly.

"Come here. I don't like all that muck. . . ."

He had wetted the towel. He now washed her face; and he became a little gentler in his movements, glance and voice. . . because she was frightened and meek. He washed her face all over:

"There," he said. "Now at least you're natural."

Something like hatred gripped at her heart, but she could not yield to it: her nerves had become too slack for hatred. Besides, she had always, always been very fond of him, just because he was such a strange mixture of roughness and gentleness. She remained standing anxiously in front of him, with her hands in his.

Like that, like that, at any rate, she no longer looked like the picture on a chocolate-box. He was