“If I am fanatic in my desire to be decent, you are an atheist. I tell you I cannot—will not go on!” From strength of her abhorrence the spirit-girl started up and faced him. “Punish me as you like. Anything is better than to strip my soul to your unholy gaze.”
“Anything?” He seized her arm with the sear of a red-hot iron. “I’ll give you one second to fête your fancy upon what your punishment might be. You’ll pay in full, you helliot, if you cheat me of an experiment that I plan to make. You’ve given me an idea more seducing than any of my own inception. If it works out, it will net you more than it will me. Come a day, you being what you are and I what I am——”
“I wish to hear no new ideas for me. I cannot endure more to-night.”
At her sustained effort to combat his will he leaned so close over her that her face felt scorched from his mental insistence, more offensive than the physical insistence of any man of Earth. She struggled toward her chair; there fell face forward on the board. He—without looking, she saw—swept after her like some ravening bird of prey. Strong, long talons clutched her. Almost had they shaken her access of strength from her when——
“Better let up on her, Your Demnition Pow-Wows.”
A carping voice offered the advice. A tall, strong-looking ghoul swaggered into the light from the comparative darkness outside the door.
“Sin, you infernal eaves-dropper, how dare you——”
“Leaves-dropper, rather—table-leaves-dropper.” With incredible bravado Old Original winked into the Balial glare. “May I assume the compliment to my invisibility that you failed to notice me humbly awaiting Your Damnity’s convenience without?”
“Impudently awaiting My Damnity’s inconvenience, you mean. You may not. That I didn’t notice you was due to the super-visibility of our royal raconteuse.”
“Who will recount no more if you continue to torture her. Having recommended her to your inclemency in the first place, I feel more than less responsible. The wages of sin are best paid by death—you’ll concede that to me, Excellency? Yet you do not, I am sure, wish her to die.”