In a vaguely aloof and apathetic manner she felt as though it was her destiny to marry him.

And no one can escape from destiny.

Life had shown her many beautiful things--even that rarest thing of all, a beautiful and unselfish love.

But it had shown them only to snatch them away again once she had learned to value them.
If only she had never met Peter, never known the secret wonder and glory, the swift, sudden strength, the exquisite mingling of passion and selflessness which go to the making of the highest in love, she might have been content to become Roger's wife and bear his children.
His big strength and virile, primitive possessiveness would appeal to many women, and Nan reflected that had she cared for him it would have been easy enough to tame him--with his tempestuous love, his savage temper, and his shamefaced "little boy" repentances! A woman who loved him in return might have led him by a thread of gossamer! It was the very fact that Nan did not love him, and that he knew it, which drove the brute in him uppermost in his dealings with her.

He wanted to _make_ her care, to bend her to his will, to force from her some response to his own over-mastering passion.
Wearily she faced the situation for the hundredth time and knew that in the long run she must abide by it.