She looked at him, and a contemptuous wonder came upon her that a man could be so easily beaten, so easily betrayed into tacit confession. She ignored the power of conscience, for she did not know it herself.
She thought, with scorn: 'Why did he not deny, deny boldly, as I should have done in his place? He would have twisted my weapon out of my hand at once. I know so little, and I could prove nothing! But he is unnerved at once, just because it is true! Men are all imbeciles. If he had only denied and questioned me he must have found that Egon had told me nothing.'
And she watched him with derision.
In truth, she knew so little; she had scarce more to guide her than coincidence and conjecture. She longed to know everything from himself, but strong as was her curiosity, her prudence and her cruelty were stronger still, and she admirably assumed a knowledge that she had not, guided in all her dagger-strokes by the suffering she caused.
Yet her passion for him which, unslaked, was as ardent as ever, became not the less, but the greater, because she had him in her power. She was one of those women to whom love is only delightful if it possess the means to torture. Besides, it was not himself whom she hated, it was his wife. To make him faithless to his wife would be a more exquisite triumph than to betray him to her.
'He would be wax—in my hands,' she thought. A vision of the future passed before her, with her dominion absolute over him, her knowledge of his shame holding him down with a chain never to be broken. She would compel him to wound, to deceive, to torment his wife; she would dictate his every word, his every act; she would make him ridiculous to the world, so servile should be his obedience to her, so great should be his terror of her anger. He should be her lover, weak as water in all semblance, because the puppet of her pleasure. This would be a vengeance worthy of herself when she should see him kneel at her feet for permission for every slightest act, and she should scourge him as with whips, knowing he dare not rise; when she should say softly in his ear a thousand times a year: 'You are Vassia Kazán!'
She was silent a few moments, lost in the witchery of the vision she conjured up; then she looked up at him and said very caressingly, in her sweetest voice:
'Why are you so dejected? Your secret may be safe with me. You know—you know—I was willing ever to be your friend; I am not less willing now. I told you that you were unwise to make an enemy of me. Wanda's regard would not outlive such a trial, but perhaps mine may, if you be discerning enough, grateful enough to trust to it. I know your crime, for a crime it is, and a foul one: we must not attempt to palliate it. When we last met you offended, you outraged me. Only a few moments since you insulted me as though I were the lowest creature on the Paris asphalte. Yet all this I—I—should be tempted to forgive if you love me as I believe that you do. I love you, not as that cold, calm, unerring woman yonder may, but as those only can who know and care for no heaven but earth. Réné—Vassia—who, knowing your sin, your shame, your birth, your treachery, would say to you what I say? Not Wanda!'
He seemed not to hear, he did not hear. He leaned his forehead upon his arms; he was sunk in the apathy of an intense woe; only the name of his wife reached him, and he shivered a little as with cold.
At his silence, his indifference, her eyes grew alight with flame; but she controlled herself; she rose and clasped her hands upon his arm.