VI
Then with a cry that was just primitive in its passion—savage almost like that of a lioness in the desert who has been robbed of her young—she turned upon St. Genis:
"Where is he now?" she called, and her voice was quite unrecognisable, harsh and hoarse and peremptory.
"Crystal, let me assure you," protested Maurice, "that I have already done all that lay in my power. . . ."
"Where is he now?" she broke in with the same fierce intensity.
She stood there before him—wild, haggard, palpitating—a passionate creature passionately demanding to know where the loved one was. It seemed as if she would have torn the words out of St. Genis' throat, so bitter and intense was the look of contempt and of hatred wherewith she looked on him.
M. le Comte—very much upset and ruffled by all that he had heard—came out of his room just in time to see the stretcher-bearers disappearing with their burden through the front door, and the door itself closed to with a bang by Crystal. Truly his sense of decorum and of the fitness of things had received a severe shock and now he had the additional mortification of seeing his beautiful daughter—his dainty and aristocratic Crystal—in a state bordering on frenzy.
"My darling Crystal," he exclaimed, as he made his way quickly to her side and put a restraining hand upon her arm.
But Crystal now was far beyond his control: she shook off his hand—she paid no heed to him, she went closer up to St. Genis and once more repeated her ardent, passionate query:
"Where is he now?"