"No," said she, with a toss of her pretty head, and a smile in her mischievous, sparkling eyes; "I promise nothing."
He thereupon took her hand and kissed it, saying:
"I am making a poor bargain, for I am sure that your heart is empty."
"If you cannot manage to awaken love in an empty heart, it will be your fault; besides, you can always be in time to undo your work."
"How so?"
"You have me in your power, for Radonic, in your hands, is as pliable as putty, is he not?"
"Perhaps!" and the wrinkles of his cheeks deepened into a grim smile.
"Then let my husband come home a little less cross than he has been of late, will you?" she said, in a coaxing tone, and her voice had for him all the sweetness of the nightingale's trill.
"I'll try," and his blinking, grey-green eyes gloated upon her, whilst that horrible cast in them made her shiver and feel sick; but then she thought of Uros, and the idea that his life might be in danger by the power this man wielded over her husband made her conceal her real state of feelings and smile upon him pleasantly.
He put his arm round her waist, and whispered words of love into her ear, words that seemed to sink deep into her flesh and blister her; and she felt like a bird, covered over with slime by a snake, before being swallowed up.