THE UNMASKING
time for delay. There must be no obstacle to your obedience.”
She looked at him in an angry wonder. If this were mock insult, it had too undisguised a taste to be quite palatable.
“Monsieur,” she said, stamping her foot in a rage, “I go nowhere for you. Nowhere. I will die before I follow you. Battle or no battle, here I shall remain. Am I a lackey or a woman-of-all-work that you order me thus! Safety! If you value my safety, why do you permit them to make war over my very head? No, no. You are transparent—a very tissue of falsities. I read you as an open book, monsieur.”
She paused a moment for the lack of breath.
“I do not believe in you. How do you repay me for what I have done? Refuse me, deny me, and order me about like a willful child with your insolent glare and your cool, puckered brow. What is my safety to you? I do not believe—”
“Madame, you must come at once.”
“Never!” she cried. “Never! No power shall move me from the spot. Nothing—” At this moment a crash ten times more dreadful
241
