For a moment it looked as if he would strike her—her, Théroigne. She stood, where he had thrust her, without the shadow thrown by the bridge, a dim glow falling upon her face from a far lamp above. Even in this tumult of his rage he was conscious of an inexplicable new meaning in her eyes. They were like caves of darkness alive with a suggestive inner movement.
“I called to find you,” she said stilly, without emotion. “The citoyen propriétaire told me you were abroad—probably at the theatre. I followed on the chance; and destiny, it seems, was my guide.”
“Why did you call? Why did you follow?—we have nothing of a common interest. I loathe you—do you hear! I curse the day on which you came into my life!”
She never moved.
“Is it not our common interest,” she said, “to wish to die?”
He gasped, and stood staring at her.
“Ah!” she went on; “but I had heard, and wondered for the result. They were betrothed no further back than yesterday; they are to be man and wife in a few weeks. He is an impatient lover—this handsome chasseur. In a few weeks she will lie in his arms—the pretty, loving babouine.”
He lifted his hand again with a furious gesture; and at that she cast back the hooded cloak which she had held clutched about her face and breast, and, coming swiftly to him, dared him with her brilliant eyes.
“Strike!” she cried; “it is what I ask. Only thou shalt strike thyself through me. What! thou know’st now what it is to be trampled under by the feet thou worship’dst! And thou shalt be haunted evermore by the shadow of another man’s happiness. Strike, I say, and kill, like me, thy spectre of unfulfilment with despair!”
She tore at her dress, baring her white bosom to him.