He bent his head and looked into her face. Soon he finished in the smooth voice of a hierophant expounding his doctrine.
“You make me hope several things of you. From your viewpoint I ought to despise you for last night’s discovery that your vamping mania has consumed a soldier from my ranks doddering enough to be your grandfather.”
“You are too intelligent to believe that,” she flashed.
“Nice work for an earthly audience. But it’s not to your interest to convince me. I am too delighted to find you worse than you at times appear. Did you notice down in the world that the virtuous women keep the devotion of their men? I guess not. One difference between me and male earthlings is that I own up to a depravity which they are taught from birth to deny. The worse I think you, the longer you’re likely to hold me. Pray let me dream on!”
“To hold—you?”
Something of sincerity in his voice forced the query. Instantly she regretted it.
“That naïveté is your cleverest trick,” he approved. “You probably guessed long before I did my—ah—dishonorable intentions. Since you ask, I don’t mind declaring them here and now.”
“Oh, no, not now—not here!”
With the protest she got to her feet and turned toward the door. But she was stopped by the compelling look of him.
“Why should I be willing to invest you with a power equal almost to my own? Am I likely to overlook how much more deadly is the female than the male—how much faster you will grow in sin than I have done, once you are well started? Should I risk your attempting to overthrow me by not making our interests one?”