The spell of her presence seemed to overpower me.
"My brave Nefil will kill him, will he not?"
"I fear," said I, "that one of them will not see to-morrow."
"Indeed, yes; it cannot be otherwise."
Her calmness amazed me. And yet there was nothing callous or unnatural in it. Perhaps it might be described as the outward expression of an imperial nature. At least that was the impression that I gained. When her servants drew their swords in her cause they must not look for a prick in the arm. Let them prepare to stake their lives and to yield them gladly. I shivered slightly; it was barbarous that a woman could thus offer the father of her children to the gods, yet it was sublime.
All too soon we arrived at the restaurant where Fitz had ordered supper for seven. The place was filling up rapidly after the theatres. We sat on a sofa in the foyer to wait for our party; I with an acute anxiety and a sense of foreboding that held me tongue-tied; my companion with a detachment of mind that in the circumstances seemed almost inhuman. For her sake a man was being done to death; one whom she loved, or one whom her father honoured. But whatever Fate's decree, her nature was schooled to the point of submission.
Seated by my side in the foyer, she subjected the throng of returning playgoers to a frankly humorous and malicious scrutiny. These English who were so bête amused her vastly. The clothes they wore, the airs they gave themselves, the things they did and the things they refrained from doing, not a detail escaped that audaciously frank, that alertly curious intelligence.
"Your women are not as you, you fine, big English good dogs," she said, bestowing another indulgent pat upon my knees. "Les Anglaises, how prim and pinched they are, what dresses they wear, and how they do walk! But I adore vos jolis hommes: was ever such distinction, such charm, such stupidity! Mon père shall have an English regiment. I will raise it myself, and be its colonel."
Her laughter was deep and rich and full of malice. Even I, stupid and stricken with fear as I was, was yet sufficiently indiscreet to attempt to seize the opportunity.
"It will be the easiest thing in the world, ma'am. Have you not raised it already?"