"ARSENIC: (Poison.)
"The powder as prescribed, to be diluted with Three Parts of Milk, and applied as directed, for clearing the complexion and freshening the skin."
Crash!...
A turn of his wrist, and the corked-up vial flew into the fireplace, smashing on the chimney-bricks and raising showers of crimson sparks from the billets blazing there. A rich incense of scorching wool arose from the Brussels carpet. P. C. Breagh stamped out one red-hot cinder, Von Keudell darted in pursuit of a remoter danger. The Minister himself was fain to extinguish another by vigorous stamps of his heavy spurred riding-boots.
"Take warning," he said to Juliette, a little breathed by his exertions, and wiping his high-domed forehead and florid cheeks with a large white handkerchief, carried, in military fashion, in the cuff of his coat. "In this way dangerous, high-flown emotions should be repressed in young girls, by sensible parents. In what a false and perilous position have your hysterical notions placed you...."
He coughed and hawked, and wiped his mouth with the big white handkerchief, put it away and said, as though trying to lash himself into a rage:
"Foolish child! Silly girl!... Little coquette!—pretending to be married to torture a sweetheart; vaporing of murder—acting the heroine—to take a gaby's breath away!... What you want is a decent, sensible mother to administer a good whipping...."
A shudder convulsed her slight body. In the firelight her face looked rigid and drawn.
He might have pursued, had not the gaby to whom he had unceremoniously referred stopped him by crying:
"Be silent! I will not stand by and listen to such language! I will not permit you to speak to her so!"