“Damn you!” Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. He glared at her round the half-finished portrait on the easel. “Poor ducks!” Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking was faint in the distance; it was inaudible. “Can’t you see you make me lose my time?” he asked. “I can’t work with you dangling about distractingly like this.” “You’d lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your feet and did a little painting for a change. After all, what am I dangling about for, except to be painted?” Gombauld made a noise like a growl. “You’re awful,” he said, with conviction. “Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why do you tell me you’d like me to paint your portrait?” “For the simple reasons that I like you--at least, when you’re in a good temper--and that I think you’re a good painter.” “For the simple reason”--Gombauld mimicked her voice--“that you want me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusement of running away.” Anne threw back her head and laughed. “So you think it amuses me to have to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew how gross and awful and boring men are when they try to make love and you don’t want them to make love! If you could only see yourselves through our eyes!” Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked his canvas with the ardour of irritation. “I suppose you’ll be saying next that you didn’t start the game, that it was I who made the first advances, and that you were the innocent victim who sat still and never did anything that could invite or allure me on.” “So like a man again!” said Anne. “It’s always the same old story about the woman tempting the man. The woman lures, fascinates, invites; and man--noble man, innocent man--falls a victim. My poor Gombauld! Surely you’re not going to sing that old song again. It’s so unintelligent, and I always thought you were a man of sense.” “Thanks,” said Gombauld. “Be a little objective,” Anne went on. “Can’t you see that you’re simply externalising your own emotions? That’s what you men are always doing; it’s so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for some woman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her of luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You have the mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate of strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent as the strawberries and cream.” “Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case,” said Gombauld, without looking up. Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. “I’m at a loss to know whether you’re more silly or more rude.”