“What have I done to you, Ferez? What have I ever done to you that you, even from my childhood, come always stepping noiselessly at my skirt’s edge?—always padding behind me at my heels, silent, sinister, whimpering with bared teeth for the courage to bite which God denies you!”
The man stood almost motionless, moistening his dry lips with his tongue, but his eyes moved continually, stealing uneasy glances around him and upward, where, on the main terrace above them, the heads of the throng passed and repassed.
“Nihla,” he said, “for all thees scorn and abuse of me, you know, in the false heart of you, why it ees so if I have seek you.”
“You dealer in lies! You would have sold me to d’Eblis! You thought you had sold me! You were paid for it, too!”
“An’ still!” He looked at her furtively.
“What do you mean? You conspired with d’Eblis to ruin me, soul and body! You involved me in your treacherous propaganda in Paris. Through you I am an exile. If I go back to my own country, I shall go to a shameful death. You have blackened my honour in my country’s eyes. But that was not enough. No! You thought me sufficiently broken, degraded, terrified to listen to any proposition from you. You sent your agents to me with offers of money if I would betray my country. Finding I would not, you whined 382 and threatened. Then, like the Eurasian dog you are, you tried to bargain. You were eager to offer me anything if I would keep quiet and not interfere——”
“Nihla!”
“What?” she said, contemptuously.
“In spite of thees—of all you say—I have love you!”
“Liar!” she retorted wrathfully. “Do you dare say that to me, whom you have already tried to murder?”