Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/191

 her that she seeks out Rimânez one night and declares her love, only to be scorned by him:

"I know you love me," (is his retort); "I have always known it! Your vampire soul leaped to mine at the first glance I ever gave you." And he rejects her pleadings. "For you corrupt the world,—you turn good to evil,—you deepen folly into crime,—with the seduction of your nude limbs and lying eyes you make fools, cowards, and beasts of men!" There is no limit to the degradation of this evil wife. "Since you love me so well," he said, "kneel down and worship me!"

She falls upon her knees. And the scene thus continues:

"With every pulse of my being I worship you!" she murmured passionately. "My king! my god! The cruel things you say but deepen my love for you; you can kill, but you can never change me! For one kiss of your lips I would die,—for one embrace from you I would give my soul!"

"Have you one to give?" he asked derisively. "Is it not already disposed of? You should make sure of that first! Stay where you are and let me look at you! So!—a woman, wearing a husband's name, holding a husband's honor, clothed in the very garments purchased with a husband's money, and newly risen from a husband's side, steals forth thus in the night, seeking to disgrace him and pollute herself by the vulgarest unchastity! And this is all that the culture and training of nineteenth-century civilization can do for you? Myself, I prefer the barbaric fashion of old times, when rough savages fought for their women as they