"Come in and help to carry"—
and with ghastly glee she adds—
". . . We may sleep
Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night."
* * * * *
Now the dialogue sways between her deliberate sensuous allurement of the man and his deepening horror at what they have done. She winds and unwinds her hair—was it so that he once liked it? But he cannot look; he would give her neck and her splendid shoulders, "both those breasts of yours," if this thing could be undone. It is not the mere killing—though he would "kill the world so Luca lives again," even to fondle her as before—but the thought that he has eaten the dead man's bread, worn his clothes, "felt his money swell my purse." . . . This is the intolerable; "there's a recompense in guilt"—
"One must be venturous and fortunate:—
What is one young for else?"
and thus their passion is justified; but to have killed the man who rescued him from starvation by letting him teach music to his wife . . . why—
". . . He gave me
Life, nothing less"—
and if he did reproach the perfidy, "and threaten and do more," had he no right after all—what was there to wonder at?
"He sat by us at table quietly:
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched?"