The beacon of green-gray light, which the chevalier knew so well, shone out for an instant and was gone. It began to strike the abbé, with a surge of impotent rage, that he might have been wrong in his calculations; that some long-suffering and apparently defenceless women possess an occult strength against which a will of tempered steel may beat in vain; and a suspicion of defeat at the moment of expected victory sent a fume of wrath into his brain that made him dizzy.
"Take care!" he muttered, hoarsely. "That I have already done is nothing! I have wooed you long, and in the end you shall give way--I swear it!"
"Wickedness and conceit disturb your reason," Gabrielle replied, with a calm which increased his fury. "The crafty and unscrupulous often over-reach themselves. Therein lies the salvation of those who have naught but innocence for armour."
She looked him in the face with such steady scorn, that his shifty eyes lowered before hers. It came upon Pharamond with a shock, that she whom he had thought to dominate by a skilful mixture of the bitter and the sweet was not the least afraid of him, although she realised too well that to gratify his passions he would stick at nothing. One by one he had cut off from her the joys of life, and the slow cruel process had turned his sword edge. He was nettled and humiliated by the conviction that his boasted knowledge of the feminine organism was moonshine, and that the error into which he had fallen--and which must lie at his own door--was possibly irremediable. To be baffled now, when he had deemed all secure; to be shown with withering contempt, that he would never have his way! It was too late to turn a new leaf and commence again at the beginning. And the immediate future so ominously dark! A resistance so cool and deliberate and unexpected, shivered his plans at a blow. Well. Baffled he might be, but she should rue the day. If in the duel, she was to prove victorious, with a bitterness as of gall would he execrate this woman! Is it possible to love and hate at the same time? As Pharamond glanced at the tall figure and defiant bearing of the marquise, his desire for her tingled along each nerve, and yet he hated her for that mien of stubborn scorn. She should rue that day--oh, yes, she should rue it! Some excruciatingly ingenious retaliation should be devised. The proud beauty should be whipped till each limb quivered. She had confessed to apprehension of his inventive powers; she should feel their effect, and speedily.
Gabrielle was able apparently to read his white and vindictive visage. Without blenching, she observed, mournfully, "I spoke at random, when I said I dreaded you; what is there left for me to dread? I have passed along the stony path of the black valley of the shadow, and, thanks to you, nothing can affect me now. I defy you to do your worst. Having bereft me of children and husband, what is there left for me to bear? Whatever you may devise, I shall thank heaven for the burthen as a merciful atonement for my sin."
"You scoff at my love and brave my hate!" returned the abbé, striving hard to control his voice. "You have finally refused the one, and for the first time shall know the other."
"I despise both. To me you are more vile a reptile than the bloated hideous toad from which by instinct we recoil. Your poisonous breath infects the air; your vampire face insults God's image. In place of the abject thing which you call love, and which I rightly spurned, you offer hate? So much the better. As the more honest I accept it."
"You have spoken your own sentence. A day will come when you shall sue for mercy and find none!"
"Never! Go!"
With a frown and a superb motion of her matchless arm, Gabrielle pointed at the door. In the excitement of indignation and defiance, the marquise was more beautiful than ever. Pharamond fairly writhed in his desire and his rage. She should be his--by force, if need be; but his--his! And after that, to revenge this scorn, he would fling her in the gutter to rot there! Stung to the quick--torn by ravening passions, evil both--the abbé bowed mechanically, and, scowling, left the room.