"I am not angry with you," he responded half sullenly. "But I can bear no trifling, I warn you. I am not my own master. If you wish to secure yourself from further insult, you will be wise to leave me alone."
"And if not?" she questioned slowly. "If—for instance—I do not feel myself insulted by what happened last night?"
He glanced up at that so suddenly that she felt as if something pierced her.
"Then," he rejoined harshly, "you are a very strange woman, Mademoiselle Stephanie."
"I begin to think I am," she said, with a rather piteous smile. "Yet, for all that, I will not be trifled with either. A compact such as ours can only be cancelled by mutual consent. I think you are rather inclined to forget that."
"Meaning?" said Pierre abruptly.
She drew a sharp breath. Her heart was beating very fast.
"Meaning," she said, "meaning that I do not—and I will not—agree to your proposal; that if I accept my freedom from you, it will be because you force me to do so, and I will take nothing else—do you hear?—nothing else, either as a gift or as a bequest. You may compel me to accept my freedom—against my will; but nothing else, I swear—I swear!"
Her voice broke suddenly. She pressed her hands against her throat, striving to control her agitation. But she might as well have striven to contend with the previous night's storm; for it shook her, from head to foot it shook her, as a tree is shaken by the tempest.
As for Pierre, before her words were fairly uttered he had leapt to his feet. His hands were clenched. He looked almost as if he would strike her.