Two white hands slowly but firmly encircled her throat.
"I would strangle you!" hissed Theodora, her face deadly pale.
Roxané's cheeks too had lost their colour. She knew her opponent and she instinctively felt she had reached the limit. She gave a little nervous laugh as she drew Theodora's reluctant hands from the marble whiteness of her throat, where their touch had left a rosy imprint.
"I do not wish your Saxon bear," she said. "If you can tame him, we come to his skin!"
"By Lucifer!" replied the Queen of the Groves, "did I but choose to, I would make him forget heaven and hell and bring him to my feet!"
"How dramatic!" sneered Benilo. "Words are air! We want proofs!"
She whirled upon him.
"And what will become of the snake, when the hunter appears?"
Benilo paled. For a moment his arrogance deserted him. Then he said with an ominous scowl:
"Let the hunter beware!"