"Oh, you needn't look like that. I have to suffer, not you. I kept wondering how I got the beastly thing, and although I fancied it might be that kiss, I could not be quite sure. Katinka enlightened me--she was always a good-natured girl. After the death of that little reptile, she returned to England and watched me. Seeing that I went to doctors--she must have watched very closely--and then abroad, she wrote a letter--such a nasty, spiteful letter. But I always thought Katinka was a cat. Would you like to----?"
"No, no; I have heard enough."
"And you call yourself a man--pooh! You must hear. I learned from the letter that Demetrius contracted the--the--well, what he suffered from, amongst the natives of Kamchatka. He intended first to show me up; but when that horrid girl told him how she had hurt my mouth, he knew that by a kiss he could--ahr-r-r! He was a doctor, you see, and the skin being broken, it was easy for him, knowing what he did, to do what he wanted--the brute! That was why he kissed so hard, and----"
"Stop! stop!"
"It is beastly, isn't it? That's all, I think."
She was examining her finger-nails when next Lionel stole a glance at her. He scarcely knew what to say. Her treachery and the result of her treachery were both abominable. That a beautiful woman, gently born and bred, should sin so vilely seemed incredible. For beautiful she was, sitting there calmly under the uplifted sword of Azrael, the Angel of Death; and vile she confessed herself to be. Yet he could hardly accept either the physical degradation or the moral turpitude.
"You may be mistaken, after all," he stammered vaguely.
"Because I am not an object," she replied, with a shrug. "How like a child you are to require proof! I don't intend to become an object, I can tell you."
"But if there is no cure----"
"There is another way. Of course, it is disagreeable, but what is one to do in such straits?"