"You may laugh," said I, "but I'm not angry; and I shall pull this house down—or dig it up—in cold blood, in perfectly cold blood."
"You are angry," said Euphrosyne, "and you say you're not. You are like my father. He would stamp his foot furiously like that and say, 'I am not angry, I am not angry, Phroso.'"
Phroso! I had forgotten that diminutive of my guest's classical name. It rather pleased me, and I repeated it gently after her, "Phroso, Phroso," and I'm afraid I eyed the little foot that had stamped so bravely.
"He always called me Phroso. Oh, I wish he were alive! Then Constantine—"
"Since he isn't," said I, sitting by Phroso (I must write it, it's a deal shorter)—by Phroso's elbow—"since he isn't, I'll look after Constantine. It would be a pity to spoil the house, wouldn't it?"
"I've sworn," said Phroso.
"Circumstances alter oaths," said I, bending till I was very near Phroso's ear.
"Ah," said Phroso, reproachfully, "that's what lovers say when they find another more beautiful than their old love."
I shot away from Phroso's ear with a sudden backward start. Her remark, somehow, came home to me with a very remarkable force. I got off the table, and stood opposite to her, in an awkward and stiff attitude.
"I am compelled to ask you for the last time if you will tell me the secret," said I, in the coldest of tones.