A vehement snatch of her hand at his arm roused him.
‘Do you hear, Afer? Speak when I ask you!’
Raising his head he looked at her with provoking gravity, and his studied deliberate manner easily attained the effect he designed for it.
At no time did she appear so superb, as when her impetuous blood was stirred, and the excitement of anger glowed in her cheeks and flashed in her eyes. He gazed upon her with a double gratification, for, while his glance drank in the spectacle of her kindled beauty, his heart warmed with a savage joy of power.
Her contemptuous bearing had filled him with a devouring tumult of passions, none the less fierce, because of the powerful restraint which stifled them.
All the arts of sympathetic love and compassion may be lavished on a mind which lies numb in the chill death of its hope of hopes; but let the venom of contempt be flung upon it, from a certain eye or lip, and it straightway surges from its icy torpor with the fire and fury of deadly hate.
Above the wild passion which sickened in the heart of Afer, struggled resentment and profound indignation. He calmly looked back the flashing gaze of his companion, and a faintly mocking smile curved his lips.
‘Yes, I hear,’ he said at length; ‘of what do you wish me to speak?’
‘Of what? You are bent on provoking me. Are we not [pg 306]talking—did you not speak of some rumour or tavern gossip of the island at my expense?’
‘Since your appearance in Caesar’s villa, as a guest, the island is mightily interested in you, and, naturally, the tongue follows the bent of the mind. Many rumours and conjectures are doubtless rife concerning you. To which would you have me refer?’