“No? Well then shall I confess that I worship her, that the ground her foot touches is changed to holy soil; that when she smiles I am in heaven, and when she frowns, in hell; and that for four months I have only existed on the hope of seeing her again; that she fills my heart, inspires my every thought, dominates my every action, permeates my being, and is the end-all and be-all of my life?” I declaimed all this with a lot of extravagant gesture; and then added in a different tone: “And why on earth do you want to insist that I am in love with her?”
“It is necessary that I know exactly the relationship between you?”
“My relationship is precisely the same as between you and myself, madame.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are we not all cousins in more or less remote degree—in our descent from Adam and Eve?”
She rustled her shoulders impatiently. “Don’t you understand what I mean? You know how we first met.”
“Oh ho, and is the fair Miralda one of you?” I laughed. “But I thought that subject was taboo?”
“You know my secret and I can therefore talk freely to you.”
“I would very much rather that you did not, if you please.”
“I am under the deepest of all obligations to you, Mr. Donnington; you saved my life and I wish to be your friend. If you have any such feeling for Miralda as you have burlesqued, I owe it to you to let you understand things and be warned in time. It is not possible for a foreigner to know the undercurrents of life here at present.”