For if it were, she could watch that other stir it into her drink, and dally with "the exquisite blue," and then, great glowing creature, lift the goblet to her lips, and taste. . . . But one must be content: the old man knows—this grim drug is the deadly drug; only, as she bends to the vessel again, a new doubt assails her.
"What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me—
That's why she ensnared him: this never will free
The soul from those masculine eyes—say, 'No!'
To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go.
For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought
Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall,
Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!"
* * * * *
But it is not painless in its working? She does not desire that: she wants the other to feel death; more—she wants the proof of death to remain,
"Brand, burn up, bite into its grace[236:1]—
He is sure to remember her dying face!"
Is it done? Then he must take off her mask; he must—nay, he need not look morose about it:
"It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close."
She is not afraid to dispense with the protecting vizor:
"If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?"