“The strangest thing of all is that I should submit to your exasperating ways as I do.”
“It does not strike me that it is I who am quarrelling this time,” said Keyork.
“I confess, I would almost prefer that to your imperturbable coolness. What is this new phase? You used not to be like this. You are planning some wickedness. I am sure of it.”
“And that is all the credit I get for keeping my temper! Did I not say a while ago that I would never quarrel with you again?”
“You said so, but—”
“But you did not expect me to keep my word,” said Keyork, slipping from his seat on the table with considerable agility and suddenly standing close before her. “And do you not yet know that when I say a thing I do it, and that when I have got a thing I keep it?”
“So far as the latter point is concerned, I have nothing to say. But you need not be so terribly impressive; and unless you are going to break your word, by which you seem to set such store, and quarrel with me, you need not look at me so fiercely.”
Keyork suddenly let his voice drop to its deepest and most vibrating key.
“I only want you to remember this,” he said. “You are not an ordinary woman, as I am not an ordinary man, and the experiment we are making together is an altogether extraordinary one. I have told you the truth. I care for nothing but my individual self, and I seek nothing but the prolongation of life. If you endanger the success of the great trial again, as you did to-day, and if it fails, I will never forgive you. You will make an enemy of me, and you will regret it while you live, and longer than that, perhaps. So long as you keep the compact there is nothing I will not do to help you—nothing within the bounds of your imagination. And I can do much. Do you understand?”
“I understand that you are afraid of losing my help.”