He reached for the photograph. It was Sue herself, as she would appear in one of the more daring scenes of Nature.
“It's an honest picture, Sue--right off the film.” She was very quiet. “It's the singling it out, Jacob. In the film it is all movement, action--it passes. It doesn't stay before their eyes.” A little feeling crept into her voice. “I agreed to do the film, Jacob. I'm doing it. Am I not?”
“But you're drawing a rather sharp line, Sue. We've got to hit them hard with this thing. I don't expect Mann to understand. I've got to work along with him as best I can and let it go at that. But I count on you.” The legs of the chair came down with a bang. He sprang up and walked the floor again. His cigarette consumed, he lighted another with the butt, which latter he tossed into a corner of the room. Sue's eyes followed it there. She was still gazing at it when Zanin paused before her. She could feel him looking down at her. She wished it were possible to avoid discussion just now. There had been so many discussions during these crowded two years.... She raised her eyes. There were his, fixed on her. He was not tired. His right hand was plunged into his thick hair; his left hand held the cigarette.
“And that's something to be considered seriously. We need you fit.”
She did not answer at once. She would have liked to send him away. She tried to recall the long slow series of events, each dovetailed so intricately into the next that had brought them so close. Her mind--her sense of fairness--told her that he had every right to stand there and talk at her; yet he seemed suddenly and oddly a stranger.
“Suppose,” she said, “we stop discussing me.”
He shook his head. “It's quite time to begin discussing you. It's suppressions, Sue. You've played the Village game with your mind, but you've kept your feelings under. The result is natural enough--your nerves are in a knot. You must let go--trust your emotions.”
“I trust my emotions enough,” said she shortly.
He walked back and forth. “Let's look at this dispassionately, Sue. We can, you and I. Of course I love you--you know that. There have been women enough in my life, but none of them has stirred my blood as you have. Not one. I want you--desperately--every minute--month in, month out. But”--he stood before her again--“if you can't let go with me, I'd almost--surely, yes, I can say it, I'd rather it would be somebody else then. But somebody, something. You're all buttled up. It's dangerous.”