She laughed a little.
"A woman! Marcellin said that."
"Well! What is there strange in saying it?"
She pointed to the corpse which the last sunrays were brightening, till the limbs were as alabaster and the hair was as gold.
"That was a woman—a creature that is white and rose, and has yellow hair and laughs in the faces of men, and has a mother that kisses her lips, and sees the children come to play at her knees. I am not one. I am a devil, they say."
His mouth smiled with a touch of sardonic humor, whose acrimony and whose irony escaped her.
"What have you done so good, or so great, that your world should call you so?"
Her eyes clouded and lightened alternately.
"You do not believe that I am a devil?"
"How should I tell? If you covet the title claim it,—you have a right,—you are a woman!"