“A gentleman and a man would have kept that to himself; but you are neither one nor the other; or you would have taken my offer, and then run away from me the next day, you fool. A man betrays a woman; he doesn't insult her. Ah, you admire Frank's affection; well, you shall imitate it. You couldn't love me like a man; you shall love me like a dog.”
“How will you manage that, pray?” he inquired with a sneer.
“I'll drive you mad.”
She hissed this fiendish threat out between her white teeth.
“Ay, sir,” she said, “hitherto your reason has only encountered men. You shall see now what an insulted woman can do. A lunatic you shall be ere long, and then I'll make you love me, dote on me, follow me about for a smile: and then I'll leave off hating you, and love you once more, but not the way I did five minutes ago.”
At this furious threat Alfred ground his teeth, and said, “Then I give you my honour that the moment I see my reason the least shaken, I'll kill you: and so save myself from the degradation of being your lover on any terms.”
“Threaten your own sex with that,” said the Archbold contemptuously; “you may kill me whenever you like; and the sooner the better. Only, if you don't do it very quickly, you shall be my property, my brain-sick, love-sick slave.”
CHAPTER XLI
AFTER a defiance so bitter and deadly, Alfred naturally drew away from his inamorata. But she, boiling with love and hate, said bitterly, “We need not take Mr. Rooke into our secrets. Come, sir, your arm!”