"A facon de parler, chéri. I thought 'twould please you; I ought rather to have said 'My lover.'"
He gazed at her in mingled anger and stupefaction. Then he sprang from the divan to his feet.
"Your effrontery amazes me," he said. "Pray do you pass as an unmarried woman?"
"I pass as Madame de Moncourt," she replied, flashing her eyes boldly on him, "and no one has yet had the temerity to ask for my credentials."
"I shall claim you as my wife," he said, his anger rising.
"And get shot as a deserter," was the cool response.
Her audacity and coolness staggered him; but, before he could reply, "Nay, I can save you from that," she said, "while I think of it, let me hand you this." And from a bangle on her wrist she unfastened the charm Buonaparte's wife had given him, as a reminder that her husband would spare his life, should it be jeopardized.
"I have worn it ever since we parted." She held it out to him.
But he declined it. "I will not have it," he said fiercely. "What care I for life, without you to share it? No matter what the consequences, I will proclaim you as my wife. Keep the talisman and be my murderess, if you will." Then he added with a heartfelt wail, "Oh! Halima, was all your boasted love for me but counterfeit?"
While his unbending resolution angered her, his anguish, which was but the expression of his great love for her, touched her heart. Besides which, she really loved him, and she did not mean to lose him; but she must have him on her own conditions. A smile of triumph overspread her face, but softened withal by love.