Ruth decided to ignore this.
“And now you’ve frightened poor Amy so that she is leaving. That ought to concern you, for it may be some time before Miss Mayfield can find any one to take her place.”
“That is of no importance, for on the first of the year the house will revert to its original owner and she will not need servants. She will be travelling with her new husband.”
“Her what?” Ruth forgot that she was talking to George. She stared at him wide eyed, unwilling to believe that she had heard him rightly.
His blue lips curled up in a thin smile:
“Certainly—wait and you will see that I am right. She herself does not know it, but she will marry Prince Aglipogue on the first of the new year.”
“She will do nothing of the sort—she can’t—he’s fat!”
Ruth was protesting not to George but to herself, for even against her reason she believed everything George said to her. He shrugged his shoulders, still smiling at her, and it seemed to her that the iris of his eyes was red, concentrating in tiny points of flame at the pupils.
“You are speaking foolishly out of the few years of your present existence; back of that you have the unerring knowledge of many incarnations and you know that what I say is true. Has she not already had three husbands? I tell you she will have one more before she finally finds her true mate. She has suffered, but before she knows the truth she must suffer more. Through the Prince she will come to poverty and disgrace, and when these things are completed she will see her true destiny and follow it.”
A mist was swimming before Ruth’s eyes so that she no longer saw the room or the figure of George—only his red eyes glowed in the deepening shadows of the room, holding her own. She struggled to move her gaze, but her head would not turn; she tried to rise, to leave him as if his words were the silly ravings of a demented servant, but her limbs were paralysed. Only her lips moved and she heard words coming from them, or echoing in her brain. She could not be sure that she really made a sound.