Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/55

44 to my power on you? Do you mean that it can ever be possible for your mere will to cancel such a tie as there is between us? Do you mean that, if you pretend to forget the past and all my claims on you, I shall ever allow them to be forgotten?" "'Forgotten?' No. It is not so easy to forget. But trade on them longer, I have said, you shall never do. I have endured your exactions too many years already."

"But, by Heaven! then I insist" "You cannot insist. If you need money, you know the price of it: my release from you, as far as you have the power to bestow it. On other terms, you will never again live on my gold. The choice will be for you."

"But I demand"

"You can demand nothing, sir."

And with a movement that even now did not stoop to be hurried, or lose in any sort its dignity, she swept by him before he could arrest her, passed through the door, and closed it. He knew Idalia well enough to know that to forcée himself on her, or seek to intimidate her into compliance with his will, would be as utterly vain as to seek to quarry with a razor the great black heights