“‘Esther?’ Thou calledst me that when cavalier, turning lover. Thou art neither now!” The sentence ended in a petulant sob.
“Oh, stay now. It was playfulness. I—there, now! Canst thou not brook a little playfulness from me?”
“Playfulness? Bah! Ye men play so like lions, forgetting to keep the claws cushioned! But, now thou hadst better be going, saint—the only one here. Go, now, right along to heaven. They want thee there. They want thee, not me.” Then she choked back another sob, but instantly thereafter, dashing the rising tear from her eyes, she bitterly exclaimed: “At any rate, thou’lt have company!”
“Whom, pray?”
“The begetter and chief of all restless vagabonds!”
“So; I never heard of him. Has he a name, my dear?”
The knight was sarcastic, because he was nettled.
Rizpah’s eyes glittered with the fire of offended pride, and she quickly began in measured tone, as if in soliloquy, and alone, to quote Job’s record of satan’s joining the assembly of the sons of God:
“There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and satan came also. And the Lord said whence camest thou? Then satan said from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.”