“I mean,” said I—“I mean, madam, that you are what I choose to make you. That marriage you so skilfully encompassed is, if I choose it, no marriage.”
She put her hands to her head like one who has turned suddenly giddy.
“You married me before God’s altar,” she said in a sort of whisper; “you married me, and you took me home.”
I was still too angry to stay my tongue.
With a bitter laugh, “I married the Princess,” I said, “but I took the servant home.”
A burning tide of blood rushed to her brow; I saw it unseeing, as a man does in passion; but I have lived that scene over and over again, waking and dreaming, since, and every detail of it is stamped upon my brain. Next she grew livid white, and spread out her hands, as though a precipice had suddenly opened before her; and then she cried:
“And this is your English honour!” and turning on her heel she left me.
The scorn of her tone cut me like a whip. I swore a mighty oath that I would never forgive her till she sued for pardon. She must be taught who was master. In solitude she should reflect, and learn to rue her sins to me—her audacity—her unwarrantable presumption—her ingratitude!
All in my white heat of anger I summoned János and bade him tell his mistress’s nurse that I had gone into the mountains for a week. And then I ordered a fresh horse, and followed only by the old man, dashed off like one possessed into the rocky wastes.