“Elle est dans ma voix, la criarde!
C’est tout mon sang, ce poison noir!
Je suis le sinistre miroir
Où la mégère se regarde!
“Je suis la plaie et le couteau!
Je suis le soufflet et la joue!
Je suis les membres et la roue,
Et le victime et le bourreau!”
She paused after it, smiling intently upon him, and he met the smile to say:
“That’s only one side of it, dear.”
“Ah, it’s a side I know about, too! Didn’t I see it, feel it? Haven’t I been all through it—with you, for you, because of you? Ah, when you left me—when you left me, Gavan—“
Still she smiled, with brilliant eyes, repeating,
“Qui me secoue et qui me mord.”
He was silent, sitting with his pallid, drooping head; and suddenly she put her other hand on his, on the hand that gently, mechanically, smoothed her fingers.
“You caress me, you try to comfort me,—while I am tormenting you. It’s strange that I should want to torment you. Is it that I’m so afraid you sha’n’t feel? I want you to feel. I want you to suffer. It is so horrible to leave you. It is so horrible to be afraid—sometimes afraid—that I shall never, never see you again. When you feel, when you suffer, I am not so lonely. But you feel nothing, do you?”