Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/652

646 gaze of those stupid passionate eyes was oppressive even to him, – "enough, Tryphosa; it is late, and I must go."

"You must go – to her. To tell her that you love her."

"I am accountable to none for what I may say or do."

"You have told her already that you love her."

"Think what you like."

"And I could tell you another thing."

"Could you? Ha! what is that?"

She had come a step nearer, mechanically dragging her sleepy child beside her. Now she stopped, and eyed him attentively.

"Do you think that she loves you?"

"I shall hear to-day;" and a smile of confidence flickered across his features.

"I can tell you."

"Ah!" He faced her, and in his eyes there was nothing now but an expectant light. The hatred, the anger, the reckless cruelty were all held at bay for one moment by breathless suspense. He might almost have been mistaken, as he stood there, for an honest and true-hearted lover, so little power had his passions of stamping their mark on his face. And yet at this moment it was that his cruelty reached the point of climax. That expectant light in his eyes meant death to Tryphosa – a more bitter death than his fury of a minute ago. He viewed her only as the person who could give him information he wanted, and as such only he looked at her with interest.

The answer was long in coming, but it came at last.

"I will tell you, then: she does not love you."

The words were dropped slowly, heavily, as if each word had been a leaden weight falling to the ground.

The light died out of István's eyes, only to blaze up again more hotly.

"You lie! She does love me. I know it – it must be."

He might as well have run his head against a rock. Tryphosa answered immovably as before –

"She does not love you."

This time he turned livid pale. He knew Tryphosa too well to doubt her plain statement. He stood speechless, his hands slowly clenching by his sides, and a rush of tumultuous thought coursing fast and furious through his brain.

Tryphosa watched him: she had tried an experiment, and she was watching to see how it would work.

Suddenly upon the paleness came a painfully vivid flush of red; he sprang forward towards her and caught her by the wrist.

"Is this your revenge?" he demanded violently. "Is this to torture me? Is it your jealousy that makes you speak? or madness? or is it the truth? Which is it? I must know it now – at once."

She did not shrink or waver as he touched her. There was the truth written plainly in her eyes, though she made no movement with her lips; and István saw it. He dropped her hand and turned away, taking two steps in the room and back again, with a new and sudden restlessness of manner.

"How do you know this? Quick, quick, quick!"

Quickness was out of her power, but she answered his question clearly enough.

"She told me so herself: she was with me last night. I asked her, and she told me."

"Ha, ha! – impossible!" he laughed harshly. "She told you that, – and what else?"

"She told me that," said the Princess, slowly, "and she told me nothing else."