"I'm not Eileen, and I particularly dislike you at this moment. Let me
have my hand, please."
He dropped it like a stinging nettle. "I was hoping you'd let me keep
it," he murmured.
"Why?" She was simple and pitiless. "Because we read Plato together? That
was platonic enough, wasn't it?"
"You can jest about what breaks my heart?"
"I am very sorry. I like you."
His breathing changed, "like a fish thrown back into the water," Eileen
thought. She hastened to add, "But it's not what a wife should feel."
"How do you know what a wife should feel?"