His tone was cynical, but his eye was stern and anxious.
"Months?" echoed the rider with a laugh. "It took her but the measure of minutes to decide on my worth."
"Her?" commented the musician with inquiring emphasis.
"Did you think," answered Steven—and, though he strove to be cool, the passion of his wrath wrote itself on every line of his face and vibrated in his voice like the first mutterings of thunder—"did you think I went through the marriage ceremony for the pure amusement of making a nine days' scandal and deserting my hour-old wife? That would have been a brilliant jest indeed! No; if you must know, the situation is of her making. She took her woman's privilege ... and changed her mind."
"She was a child yesterday," said Geiger-Hans.
There was pain in Steven's smile as he returned:
"She was no child this morning."
"But, heavens!" cried the other impatiently, "even so. Did she play the woman, was it not the more reason for you to play the man? You left her, you left her ... is it possible? For a few sharp words, perhaps, some silly misunderstanding! Why, she was yours, man; and you should have carried her with you, were it on the crupper of that high-boned grey."
"Aye," replied Steven. "Even so, as you say. It also dawned upon me, deficient as I am in wits, that the time had come for me to play the man. I actually announced my intention of carrying her away with me by main force—not on this brute, but in the coach prepared for our bridal journey. She reminded me that I took her fortune with her."
"Ah, bah!" said the fiddler, and winced as if he had been struck.