Again he waved her to a seat.
"Sit down and I'll tell you."
Trembling, she dropped once more on to a chair and waited. He puffed deliberately at his cigarette for a few moments and then, turning his glance in her direction, he smiled in a peculiar, horrible way and his eyes ran over her figure in a way that made the crimson rush furiously to her cheek. There was no mistaking that smile. It was the bold, lustful look of the voluptuary who enjoys letting his eyes feast on the prey that he knows cannot now escape him.
"Mrs. Traynor," he began in the caressing, dulcet tones which she feared more than his anger, "you are an exceptional woman. To most men of my temperament you would not appeal. They would find your beauty too statuesque and cold. I know you are clever, but love cannot feed on intellect alone, I have loved many women, but never a woman just like you. Your coldness, your haughty reserve, your refinement would intimidate most men and keep them at a distance, but not me. Your aloofness, your indifference only spurs me, only adds to the acuteness of my desire. I swore to myself that I would conquer you, overcome your resistance, bend you to my will. You turned me out of your home. I swore to be avenged."
He stopped for a moment and watched her closely as if studying and enjoying the effect of his words. Then, amid a cloud of blue tobacco smoke, he went on:
"I knew only one way to win you—it was to humiliate you, to place you in a position where you would have to come to me on your knees."
She half rose from her chair.
"I would never do that," she cried. "I would rather die!"
"Oh, yes, you will," he continued, calmly, making a gesture to her to remain seated. "When I've told you all, you'll see things in a different light." Fixing her steadily with his piercing black eyes, he asked: "Have you noticed any difference in your husband since his return."
She looked up quickly.