He made a step forward, but she lifted the pistol again to her head and leant her arm on the board to steady herself. And thus they glared at one another, the hunter and the hunted.
"This is very clever of you, Madame," he said; "but do you think it will avail you anything? You can sit like that all night, if you wish, but before dawn I will take you."
Tamara did not answer.
Then he flung himself on the couch and lit a cigarette, and all that was savage and cruel in him flamed from his eyes.
"My God! what do you think it has been like since the beginning?" he said. "Your silly prudish fears and airs. And still I loved you—madly loved you. And since the night when I kissed your sweet lips you have made me go through hell—cold and provoking and disdainful, and last night when you defied me, then I determined you should belong to me by force; and now it is only a question of time. No power in heaven or earth can save you—Ah! if you had been different, how happy we might have been! But it is too late; the devil has won, and soon I will do what I please."
Tamara never stirred, and the strain of keeping the pistol to her head made her wrist ache.
For a long time there was silence, and the great heat caused a mist to swim before her eyes, and an overpowering drowsiness—Oh, heaven!—if unconsciousness should come upon her!
Then the daylight faded quite, and the Prince got up and lit a small oil lamp and set it on the shelf. He opened the stove and let the glow from the door flood through the room.
Then he sat down again.
A benumbing agony crept over Tamara; her brain grew confused in the hot, airless room. It seemed as if everything swam round her. All she saw clearly were Gritzko's eyes.