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 perform her evil rites. . . . Byron groaned and hid his face in his hands. He could hear Lasca emitting little clucks of amazement. Standing before him, she protected him from the horror. . . while she watched. When he looked again, the light on the body was purple; the body was purple. The girl lifted a knife. . . . A woman shrieked. The knife. ..

Three days later, awakening at four in the afternoon, after his bath, Byron drew on a cerise burnous which Lasca had discovered for him in one of her chests of foreign treasures, and sought her, as usual, in the drawing-room. Although it was April, it was still slightly chilly, and he found her, in a clinging dressing-gown of sea-green, sitting before the fire, a half-filled glass of absinthe and water on a table beside her.

As he kissed her, she pushed him away, gently but impatiently.

Sit down, she said quietly. I want to talk to you.

He attempted to join her on the chaise-longue.

No, over there, she directed. I said I wanted to talk to you.

He obeyed her.

What have you been doing?

Loving you, my golden-brown, since the beginning of the world.

Yes, yes! I know all that, she retorted. I mean