"I was only putting an hypothetical case: your conduct and the present interruption convince me it was unnecessary to put such a case."
He rose, but she motioned to him to be reseated. She sighed, and continued hurriedly turning over the leaves of the book she held. Expecting every moment that she was going to speak, he watched her in silence. This was exactly what she wished; confident in the influence of her beauty over him, she thought it more effective than any argument; besides, it did not inculpate her in any way.
She miscalculated. The contemplation only served to irritate him the more. If his temples throbbed at the mere recollection of her having jilted him, the sight of her called up bygone scenes of tenderness, which made her inconstancy the more odious.
"Do you not hate me?" she said at last, keeping her eyes fixed on the book, not daring to look at him.
"I do," he replied, in a whisper, like the hiss of a serpent.
She started at the sound, and raised her terrified head to see if his face contradicted or confirmed the words. But she could read nothing there. The light which for a moment had flashed from his dark eyes had passed away, like the flush which had burnt his cheek. He had been unable to repress that movement of anger; but no sooner were the words escaped than he repented them, and endeavoured to do away with their effect, by adding,—
"That is, I did; now hate has given place to contempt. When I hated you, it was because I still felt a lingering of that love which you had outraged; but I soon overcame that weakness, and now I think only of you as one who sold herself for money."
At this very bitter speech, made the more galling from the tone of superb contempt in which it was uttered, she shook back her golden ringlets, and bent on him her tiger eyes with an expression which would have made most men tremble, but which to Marmaduke had a savage fascination, stirring strange feelings within him, and making him almost clutch her in a fierce embrace. She looked perfectly lovely in his eyes at that moment; and it is impossible to say what might have been the result of this scene, had not her husband appeared. He had just missed her, and astonished at not finding her listening to Pellegrini's recitations, for which alone he supposed her to have come there, he began fidgeting about, till he espied her in earnest conversation with the handsome Marmaduke.
"My dear," said he, preparing a pinch with slow dignity, "won't you come into the next room, to hear Alfieri?"
"No; I came away, unable to listen to Pellegrini's affected declamation."