He'd waited there
in the alley, full of bitter thoughts that were ready to leap forth in
denunciations. He'd waited there, ready, he thought, to use actual
physical force on her, in the unthinkable event of its becoming
necessary, to drag her out of this pit where he had found her, back to
his side again.
But somehow, when he had heard her speak his name, he'd begun to
tremble. And when he had felt her trembling, too, the bitter phrases had
died on his tongue and the thoughts that propelled them were smothered
like fire under sand. And as he'd stood confronting her in her mean
little room, his eyes searching her face, all he had been looking for
was a sign of the hunger--the ages-old hunger--that was devouring him.
And when he'd found it, that was enough for him. The great issue that
was to be fought out between them remained intact, but the hunger had to
be satisfied first.
It was hours later, in the very dead of the night, as he sat on the edge
of the bed, with his back to her, that the old sense of outrage and
degradation, almost as suddenly as it had left him, came back.
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