Hearing the words she turned abruptly and looked into his eyes.
“What is the meaning of that dreadful look?” he said, laughing. “But your hand is burning! oh, my love, what is it?”
“Your love!” she repeated, in a dull, changed voice.
“Yes,” he said, throwing himself on his knees beside her and taking her two hands which he covered with kisses. “Yes, my love—I am thine for life.”
She pushed him violently away from her and rose. Her features contracted, she laughed as mad people laugh, and then she said to him: “You do not mean one word of all you are saying, base man—baser than the lowest villain.” She sprang to the dagger which was lying beside a flower-vase, and let it sparkle before the eyes of the amazed young marquis. “Bah!” she said, flinging it away from her, “I do not respect you enough to kill you. Your blood is even too vile to be shed by soldiers; I see nothing fit for you but the executioner.”
The words were painfully uttered in a low voice, and she moved her feet like a spoilt child, impatiently. The marquis went to her and tried to clasp her.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried, recoiling from him with a look of horror.
“She is mad!” said the marquis in despair.
“Mad, yes!” she repeated, “but not mad enough to be your dupe. What would I not forgive to passion? but to seek to possess me without love, and to write to that woman—”
“To whom have I written?” he said, with an astonishment which was certainly not feigned.