“You are not afraid to love me, Arnold?” she continued, looking at me with curious scrutiny. “You need not be afraid. Lembken has grown tired of me, so I must find another. He has taken a fancy to Coral, my blue, an absurd little yellow-haired thing. You shall see her.”
She clapped her hands twice, and a door opened, apparently a part of the wall. A fair-haired girl, dressed in a loose blue tunic and Zouave trousers, entered, carrying a tray on which were two golden winecups.
Amaranth took the nearest cup in her hands, touched the rim with her lips, and held it out to me.
“Drink with me, Arnold,” she said.
But I would not drink, lest the corruption of the wine should dull me and disarm my strength in the spell of that enervating hell. I handed back the cup to her.
Amaranth looked at me for an instant with quivering lips. Then she burst into tears and hurled the cup at the maid. She flung the other also. The first missed its mark and fell against the base of the wall, where it shed its ruby contents in a widening stain. The second cup struck the maid’s cheek and cut it, and the wine drenched the blue tunic.
The maid smiled, biting her lips, stooped down, picked up both cups, and, placing them on the tray, departed silently. Amaranth sobbed as if her heart was broken. Then suddenly she turned and flung her arms about me.
“Arnold, I love you!” she cried. “You saw her? She is Lembken’s favorite now, that yellow-haired fool with the blue eyes like saucers. Lembken means us for each other. Can you not love me?”
I sat in silence, trying to pick my path cautiously through the mists of bewildering doubt. Amaranth unclasped her arms from about my neck, and her face assumed a look of mockery.
“Oh, I know!” she said, “it is that Elizabeth of yours whom you think you love. And you think you can only love one at a time, in your romantic twentieth-century way. Well, I will match myself against her. You shall bring her here, Arnold, and I will fight her for you, and I will be your blue and she shall be your white, and I will serve you obediently till I have won your heart. Look on me, Arnold! See how beautiful I am! For I was born here; I am Boss Rose’s daughter, and I have never left the People’s House. Look at the whiteness of my skin! The sun has never shone on it. Look at my lips, Arnold! Put your mouth to my cheek—it is as soft as the bloom upon a nectarine. Do you think, then, I am afraid to match myself against your Elizabeth?”