"You are crazy," retorted Lambert, quivering with many emotions to which he could scarcely put a name, so shaken was he by the experience. "What the devil do you mean by behaving in this way?" and his voice rose in such a gust of anger that Kara, hidden in the wood, rejoiced. He could not understand what was being said, but the tone of the voice was enough for him. He did not know whether Chaldea was cheating the Gentile, or cheating him; but he gathered that in either case, she had been repulsed. The girl knew that also, when her ardent eyes swept across Lambert's white face, and she burst into tears of anger and disappointment.
"Oh, rye, I give you all, and you take nothing," she wailed tearfully.
"I don't want anything. You silly girl, do you think that for one moment I was ever in love with you?"
"I—I—want you—to—to—love me," sobbed Chaldea, grovelling on the grass.
"Then you want an impossibility," and to Lambert's mind's eye there appeared the vision of a calm and beautiful face, far removed in its pure looks from the flushed beauty of the fiery gypsy. To gain control of himself, he took out a cigar and lighted it. But his hand trembled. "You little fool," he muttered, and sauntered, purposely, slowly toward the cottage.
Chaldea gathered herself up with the spring of a tigress, and in a moment was at his elbow with her face black with rage. Her tears had vanished and with them went her softer mood. "You—you reject me," she said in grating tones, and shaking from head to foot as she gripped his shoulder.
"Take away your hand," commanded Lambert sharply, and when she recoiled a pace he faced her squarely. "You must have been drinking," he declared, hoping to insult her into common sense. "What would Kara say if—"
"I don't want Kara. I want you," interrupted Chaldea, her breast heaving, and looking sullenly wrathful.
"Then you can't have me. Why should you think of me in this silly way? We were very good friends, and now you have spoiled everything. I can never have you to sit for me again."
Chaldea's lip drooped. "Never again? Never again?"