They were at issue now; the fencing must become a fight in earnest.
“If you were aware of my power,” Irromar said, “you would know that I do not abuse, or even use it, except to lay it at your feet.”
The eyes were fixed on her, holding her there like moral fangs. To her they seemed more fierce, more fearful even than Rollmar’s, not so much in the will they showed, as in the possibilities of evil they suggested. But, strange as this salient malevolence was to her, her innate courage met the crisis, and she told herself her spirit should not be conquered.
“It does not appear so,” she replied. “Your word and actions do not agree. Else why am I kept here a prisoner?”
He made a gesture of protest. “You are mistaken,” he assured her plausibly. “I have but taken upon myself to keep you here out of the way of the danger which I see, though you may not, is threatening you. That this necessity brings a joy to me is a fact which I dare to hope may not be indifferent to you.”
“Under the circumstances,” she replied steadily, “it can scarcely be of great moment to me.”
“It may be,” he flamed out, “it may be—of the greatest moment.”
It was a covert threat, but she ignored it. “May I ask,” she said, with a calmness in contrast to his outburst, “as I appear to be in your power”—the words were hateful to her, but not to be shirked—“what your purpose is with regard to my detention here?”
“I had hoped,” he answered, with a soreness which he could not altogether disguise, “that the question, or at least its tone, might have been unnecessary.” Then his passion began to rise. “Let me tell you, madam, without further cloaked speeches, that you seek to repulse, to defy—for my reception at your hands points to nothing else—a man whose will is law to himself and to those who cross his path. No one yet, from the late King Josef downwards, has ever successfully defied or resisted my will. That its harsh expression is seldom heard, or even felt, arises from the fact that I am a man of good heart and gentle birth. That, though I live a strenuous life, I hate brutality and love refinement. Will you not take the trouble to look beneath the surface and see—chut! I loathe vanity, but you wilfully shut your eyes to every object but an unworthy one, and compel me to show you myself, a man unlike, certainly, any other man you ever met, you ever could know, a man of a power second to no other one man’s in Europe, a man who is noble in deed, he claims, as in name, and, above all a man who asks nothing better, could better be, than to lay his power, his heart, his very life at your feet, asking you to return, even in a small measure, the devoted all-conquering love with which you have inspired him.”
With every phrase the passion of his pleading had risen, till it touched the very height of insistent fervour. As the climax was reached he put out his arms, but she avoided him with a quick, decisive movement. “No, no!” she exclaimed, in mingled dislike and indignation.