"Yes, you can give me one thing more; you can give me your promise never to marry Vladimir Mellikoff without my consent. Will you promise me this, Olga?"
Mdlle. Naundorff was now, however, thoroughly roused; she sprang to her feet and drew up her tall figure to its full height, while the proud lines of her face became prouder and more imperious, and her voice vibrated with suppressed anger, though her tones fell calm and cold.
"Certainly not, Monsieur Tolskoi; you presume too far on good fellowship. I make no promise to you, or any one, that shall control my free actions; what you ask is preposterous, Ivor, preposterous."
"Then I will kill him," said Tolskoi, quite calmly, and without any extraordinary vehemence in his voice or manner; "I will kill him."
And as Olga drew back, startled at his unexpected reply, he bent forward and caught her hand in his.
"Remember what I say, Olga; if he presumes to think that he has won you, or dares to say so, or if I learn in any way that you are his promised wife, I will kill him. He shall not possess what I would give my life to gain, and what you know would be refused me."
Then he dropped her hand, and before Olga could recover from her surprise, had passed down the long salon, and through the open portières into the great corridor that led to the palace court-yard.
Olga remained for some moments dazed and astonished, trying in vain to reconcile the Ivor of the past with the Ivor of the moment, wondering vaguely at his strange words and altered aspect. She had known for some months that he made no secret of his devotion to her, but he had always urged his admiration upon her in such a happy half-bantering fashion, she only regarded it as a boy's ardour, nor took him more seriously than his youthful face and careless manner demanded.
He had, indeed, once hinted at a deeper feeling, but she had laughed and told him not to burn his fingers with fire, and he, after a moment's annoyance, had laughed with her, and returned to his old openly expressed adoration.
But now, within this last half-hour, she had seen below the surface of that gay exterior, and she drew back half alarmed, half fascinated at what she beheld there. And although she had had her eyes opened to the other side of Ivor's nature, she had ruled and controlled men too long, seen them become her willing and abject slaves at a mere smile or word too often, to give much weight to Tolskoi's threat; it amused her rather than terrified her.