At these words Jigerdilla smote her hands together.
"Then your religion will suit me very well. If in your country such things are not matters of cash and barter, but free-will offerings, that is just what I should like. I'll follow you of my own free will. I'll fly with you, learn to know your God, go to your church, and take in baptism whatever name you like to give me."
Valentine ought to have found the offer very tempting. Had Dame Sarah been at his side she would certainly have said:
"Look, my son, now you've got fortune by the forelock, hold on fast with both hands and never let go again. You'll get a wondrously beautiful young woman, with large black eyes and a small red mouth, and a whole oven full of ducats besides; and (which is the main thing after all) you'll be saving an erring, unbelieving soul for an eternal salvation, and will thus obtain for yourself a claim upon Paradise." And it would have been the most natural thing in the world to have thought so.
But Valentine was very far indeed from thinking so. So long as the image of Michal lived in his heart, he saw in every other woman, however beautiful, only an evil spirit of temptation to which one has only to say, "Depart hence!" and it will instantly vanish into the air.
He loved another.
But he did not tell Jigerdilla so.
Instead of that he pulled a very wry face, bowed himself humbly, and said:
"How could I be such a villain as to seduce my master's wife?"
At this, Jigerdilla, fairly beside herself with rage, tore off her slipper, struck Valentine in the face, and cried: