“And use me as the instrument? What, then, shall become of me?” said Paul.
“You? Why, Paul, you shall be the central moving figure,” said Ouida.
“What care I? Use me as you will. ’Tis enough for me to know that you but reach your hand.”
“Come to my arms then again,” she cried in the ecstacy of this novel and entrancing emotion. “Let us revel in delight, you pauper! You dog! You base born thing, to whom vile society would scarcely throw a crumb!”
“Oh, the delight,” said Paul, “of spurning these little creatures. A month of such sweet vengeance, and you may have my life.”
“I’ll dress these mighty limbs of yours,” she cried. “I’ll flaunt your very baseness in their eyes. I’ll make them crawl to you for the price of a smile from me. They shall pay in deepest humiliation for the privilege of adoring me from afar. We, Paul, you and I, will richly repay society for its wrongs to us.”
She seemed now exhausted from the intensity of her feelings.
“Go now,” she said, tenderly; and without question Paul went away from her, exalted, bewildered, astonished, uplifted, amazed, but happy, and inwardly rejoicing at the wondrous change which had taken place in his fortunes. Poor fool! From his dizzy height he saw not the chasm yawning in greediness below.