But he made no movement against her. On the contrary, an expression of relief chased the anger from his lips and eyes.
"Ah!" he said, "that's a lying mirror! It lied to you and to me. I smashed it. Well, I'll give you another that is more truthful, and more ornamental too."
"What was it you saw?" she murmured.
"A silly vision, power where there is only weakness; a will, a soul, where there could not be one!"
"Eh? was it that you struck at?"
"Why do you ask?" he said with sudden suspicion.
"You struck where my face was," she said doggedly. "You did, you did!"
"Nonsense!"
"It ain't! Why did you do it, then?"
A gleam of hope had shot into her eyes, lit by his weird attack upon her mirrored image. After all, despite his sneers at her faded body, his gibes at her faded and decaying soul, he struck at her as a man strikes at the thing he fears. In that faded soul a wild hope and courage leaped up, banishing all the sick despair which had preceded it. The lady of the feathers faced Valentine with a deathless resolution of glance and of attitude.