"It's all very true," he remarked quietly. "I have nothing to urge against the matter of your speech. Your voice is, I think, unnecessarily loud, but that is a small defect, and easily reformed."
The utter failure of my endeavour to provoke him to an encounter, combined with the contemptuous insolence of his manner, lifted me to the highest pitch of fury.
"You own your cowardice, then!" I cried, fairly beside myself with rage. "You have plotted against me from the outset like a common, rascally intriguer. No device was too mean for you to adopt. Why, the mere lie about the miniature----"
I stopped abruptly, seeing that he turned on me a sudden questioning look.
"Miniature?" he exclaimed. "What miniature?"
I remembered the pledge which I had given to Ilga, and continued hurriedly, seeking to cover up my slip:
"I could not have believed there was such underhand treachery in the world."
"Then now," said he, "you are better informed," and on the instant his composure gave way. It seemed as though he could no longer endure the strain which his repression threw on him. Passion leaped into his face, and burned there like a flame; his voice vibrated and broke with the extremity of feeling; his very limbs trembled.
"'Tis all old talk to me--ages old and hackneyed. You are only repeating my thoughts, the thoughts I have lived with through this damned night. But I have killed them. Understand that!" His voice shrilled to a wild laugh. "I have killed them. Do you think I don't know it's cowardly? But there's a prize to be won, and I tell you"--he raised his hands above his head, and spoke with a sort of devilish exaltation--"I tell you, were my mother alive, and did she stand between Ilga and me, I would trample her as surely as I mean to trample you."
"Damn you!" I cried, wrought to a very hysteria by his manner. "Don't call her by that name!"