Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/142

130 pardon if any has been given. Because, as you say, I have not the faintest notion what your country is.”

“England is my country. I am English—all of me!—to there!”

As she put her hands behind her I suppose she meant that she was English to the backbone. All I could say was that she did not look it, and she did not sound it either. But not for worlds would I have mentioned the fact at that moment. She came closer, eyeing me as if she would have pierced me through and through.

“You think that he is black? You think it? You insult me, the daughter of the gods, in whose hands are life and death! Shall I tear the heart out of your body? Shall I kill you? Tell me!—yes or no!”

“No.”

It seemed an unnecessary answer to give, but I felt that I might as well give expression to my sentiments since she was so insistent. Though I thought it quite likely that she might at any moment commence, as she called it, to tear the heart out of my body, while I waited for the moment to arrive I could not but own that, even in her rage, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. But it seemed that she decided that, after all, it would be scarcely worth her while to soil her fingers just for the sake of tearing me to pieces; so she emptied the vials of her scorn on me instead.

“Bah! You are a fool—of the fools! That is all you are. You know nothing, not even what you say. Why should I attend to the witless when they babble? Listen to me—fool!”

She held her finger up close to my nose. I listened with might and main. She spoke as if she intended to lay emphasis upon her every word.

“He is English, my lover, of the English; of the flower of the nation. He is not one who lives in shops which pretend to help ugly women to hide their ugli-