Her voice carried the ring of supreme scorn. There was a quality of iciness in it, penetrating, contemptuous, acid.
Suddenly she covered her face with her hands. “In times like this,” she said, “I think of him. It helps one to live.” And after a moment, she added bitterly. “He would not have gone off to kill!”
“I can see, Madame,” said the stranger, “that you despise me.”
“It is more than that,” answered Lily, her face still covered by her white hands. “I am certain now that I hate you.”
The Uhlan frowned. “I am sorry,” he said, “I thought you were sympathetic.”
The only answer was a laugh, incredibly cold and savage from so beautiful a woman.
Within the château more lights appeared, and in the courtyard there rose the sound of hoofs striking the cobblestones and of orders being shouted back and forth in guttural German. Far away to the east a solitary cannon barked. The noise ripped the blue stillness with the sound of a tapestry being torn.
“You have forgotten,” said Lily, “that I have a son and a lover in the war. You understand, they too are in the cavalry.”
She had scarcely finished speaking when the air was shattered by the terrific rattle of a dozen rifles fired simultaneously below the terrace somewhere among the buildings of the farm. A faint glare trembled above the iron bridge and then a second volley, terrifying and abrupt, and a second brief glare.
The Uhlan did not move but Lily sat up suddenly. They remained thus for some time, the woman in an attitude of listening. It appeared that she was straining every nerve, every muscle, lest the faintest sound escape her. When the volley was not repeated she turned her head, slowly and scornfully, in the direction of her companion. In her eyes there was a look of terrible accusation, a look charged with contempt and hatred. The stranger watched her as if fascinated and unable to remove his eyes from her face. At last she spoke, slowly and distinctly, in an awed, breathless whisper.