He looked at her keenly. He could measure the superb force of this unblenching and mute courage.
"In any other creature such a humility would be hypocrisy. But it is not so in you. Why will you carry yourself as in an enemy's house? Will you not even break your fast with me? Nay, that is sullen, that is barbaric. Is there nothing that can please you? See here,—all women love these; the gypsy as well as the empress. Hold them a moment."
She took them; old oriental jewels lying loose in an agate cup on a table near; there were among them three great sapphires, which in their way were priceless, from their rare size and their perfect color.
Her mouth laughed with its old scorn. She, who had lost life, soul, earth, heaven, to be consoled with the glass beads of a bauble! This man seemed to her more foolish than any creature that had ever spoken on her ear.
She looked, then laid them—indifferently—down.
"Three sparrow's eggs are as big, and almost as blue, among the moss in any month of May!"
He moved them away, chagrined.
"How do you intend to live? he asked, dryly.
"It will come as it comes," she answered, with the fatalism and composure that ran in her Eastern blood.
"What have you done up to this moment since you left my house at Rioz?"