My lady turned, and in a flash struck her fiercely on the cheek with her open hand. 'Liar!' she cried; 'go to your master, you whipped hound!'
The Dutch woman recoiled with a cry of pain, and sobbing wildly went back to her place. The general laughed harshly.
'You hold with me, sweetheart,' he said. 'Discipline before everything. But you have not my patience.'
She looked at him--angry with him, angry with herself, her hand to her bosom--but she did not answer.
'For you must allow,' he continued--his tone and his eyes still bantered her--'that I have been patient. I have been like a man athirst in the desert; but I have waited day after day, until now I can wait no longer, sweetheart.'
'So you tamper with my--with that woman!' she said scornfully.
The general shrugged his shoulders and laughed grimly. 'Why not?' he said. 'What are waiting-women and the like made for, if not to be bribed--or slapped?'
She hated him for that sly hit--if never before; but she controlled herself. She would throw the burden on him.
He read the thought, and it led him to change his tone. There was a gloomy fire in his eyes, and smouldering passion in his voice, when he spoke again.
'Well, Countess,' he said, 'I am here for your answer.'