“Assuredly,” she said. “It is true, then, as they say, that the English are as ice. ‘Assuredly.’ You said it with a peck, as from a beak. ‘Assuredly.’ If I were to take a dagger and thrust it into my heart so that I fell dead, you would say ‘Assuredly she has driven the point too far. Assuredly she is no longer alive.’ ”
“Not so,” Sard said; “I should not say it. I might think it.”
“Would you be sorry?”
“I am sorry for any suicide.”
“Your cold ice would not thaw one tear. But, vaya, if I were countess, and lay dead, you would stand like marble and say poetry. Listen: my name, the name I call myself, is Rose of the South: will you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Assuredly?”
“No; faith of caballero.”
“Will you remember me, who am that name?”
“Yes.”