"Ah, things were different this morning. I had not then been insulted. Do you forget I am a Russian; and think you can treat me as you will—keep me waiting while—bah! it is unbearable. Will you go away? Is there no sense of manliness in you that will make you leave me? Must I call for assistance? I will do that if you do not leave me. You can write what you have to say. But, please, spare me the pain of seeing you again."
Her words cut me to the quick; but they roused me also.
"You had better call for assistance," I answered firmly. Then I crossed to the door, locked it, and put the key in my pocket. "I will spare you the pain of another interview; but now that I am here, I decline to go until I have explained."
"You cannot explain," she burst in. The word seemed to madden her.
"Cannot explain what?"
"That woman's kisses!"
The words appeared to leap from her lips involuntarily; and she repented them as soon as uttered; and drawing herself up she tried to appear cold and stolid. But this attempt failed completely; and in her anger at the thought behind the words and with herself for having given it utterance, she stood looking at me, her bosom heaving and tossing with agitation and her face and eyes aglow with an emotion, which with a strange delight, I saw was jealousy.
There came a long pause, during which I recalled her manner and the way she had played with my words, during one of our rides when we had spoken of Devinsky's proposal to make her his wife.
I have always been slow to read women's hearts and have generally read them wrong; but I began to study this with a sense of new and peculiar pleasure.
She was getting very dear to me for a sister.