“That is always the way,” he said. “You women think much more of your reputation than you do of your virtue. No woman kills herself because she has yielded to her lover. It is only one of three things that drives her to suicide afterward. The first is the dread of being found out; the second is to be deserted; and the third is starvation. But there is no record of any woman killing herself for the mere loss of her virtue, which shows that modesty is more highly valued than virtue by women themselves. Is that not true?”
Diane looked at him bewildered. Was it true?
“All I know is,” she said obstinately, “that I don’t intend there shall be anything in my past that anybody can twit me about. I would rather die. You may call it either modesty or virtue, but it is stronger with me than life or death.”
The Marquis looked at her curiously, and saw in her eyes that peculiar, deadly obstinacy and resolution which was Diane’s strongest characteristic.
“I once read in a book,” kept on Diane, holding off a little from Egmont, “that the first time a certain royal prince saw Rachel Felix act, he wrote something on a card—I am ashamed to tell you what it was—and sent it to her back of the stage, and she laughed, and invited him to come to see her. If I had been in her place, I would have killed him!”
“Killing is rather difficult for a woman,” replied the Marquis, laughing a little uncomfortably.
Diane rose and stood before him, and seemed to grow taller as she spoke.
“God would have shown me the way,” she said. “Jael had only a nail, but she killed the enemy of her people, and Judith cut off the head of Holofernes, in his camp, surrounded by his guards.”
The light in Diane’s eyes startled the Marquis. But it melted into a dovelike softness, when Egmont drew her once more to his side.
“I suppose,” he said, “you adorable little devil, that you want to bully me into marrying you?”