Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/235

224 rights, as you justly say—voluntarily from you than be compelled to extract them by harsher means." She laughed a little; a soft, mocking, ironic laugh. "I imagined so. Well—it is as I said; there is nothing to be discussed between us; for all the weight of your Church, all the steel of your Swiss, will not force one word from me."

Monsignore started, and the purple blood flushed under the olive of his cheek and brow; his lips quivered, his teeth clenched on the full scarlet under lip. It was so utterly new to Giulio Villaflor to be mocked and bearded—and by a woman too!

His dulcet courtliness gave way, his mellow and honeyed sweetness curdled, the fire flashed into his eyes that had used to burn in the darkling glance of the men of his great hierarchy when Savonarola braved them or Kings defied their legate. "'Will not' is never said to Rome!" he answered, with the haughty grandeur of the mighty days of the Papacy.

She faced him with a sovereignty not less disdainful and supreme.

"Indeed! I think many who have said it have been slain by Rome, silent unto death!"

His face darkened more and more; "contumacy"