"And which horn of the dilemma do you take?" he asked coldly.
"I haven't decided—but I will to-night."
"How interesting!"
"Yes, isn't it?" she leaned close. "With a patience that must have caused you wonder, with a waiting through years as God waits, I have endured your indifference, your coldness, your contempt. Each year I have counted the last that you could resist the call of my body and soul, and at the end of each year I have seen you further and further away from me and the gulf between us deeper and darker. This absence you have planned in this campaign means the end one way or the other. I'm going to face life now as it is, not as I've hoped it might be."
"I told you when you made your bargain to return to this house, that there could be nothing between us except a hate that is eternal——"
"And I didn't believe it! Now I'm going to face it if I must——"
She paused, breathed deeply and her eyes were like glowing coals as she slowly went on:
"I'm not the kind to give up without a fight. I've lived and learned the wisdom of caution and cunning. I'm not old and I've still a fool's confidence in my powers. I'm not quite thirty-nine, strong and sound in body and spirit, alive to my finger tips with the full blood of a grown woman—and so I warn you——"
"You warn me"—he cried with a flush of anger.
"Yes. I warn you not to push me too far. I have negro blood in me, but I'm at least human, and I'm going to be treated as a human being."