The eyes in which love had
once blazed like flame were now quiet and steady as stars. She
trembled. Her dread of Armand was increased by a nightmare
sensation of restlessness and utter inability to move; she felt
as if she were turned to stone. She lay passive in the grip of
fear. She thought she saw the light behind the curtains grow to
a blaze, as if blown up by a pair of bellows; in another moment
the gleams of flame grew brighter, and she fancied that three
masked figures suddenly flashed out; but the terrible vision
disappeared so swiftly that she took it for an optical delusion.
"Madame," Armand continued with cold contempt, "one minute,
just one minute is enough for me, and you shall feel it
afterwards at every moment throughout your lifetime, the one
eternity over which I have power. I am not God. Listen
carefully to me," he continued, pausing to add solemnity to his
words. "Love will always come at your call. You have boundless
power over men: but remember that once you called love, and love
came to you; love as pure and true-hearted as may be on earth,
and as reverent as it was passionate; fond as a devoted woman's,
as a mother's love; a love so great indeed, that it was past the
bounds of reason. You played with it, and you committed a crime.
Every woman has a right to refuse herself to love which she feels
she cannot share; and if a man loves and cannot win love in
return, he is not to be pitied, he has no right to complain. But
with a semblance of love to attract an unfortunate creature cut
off from all affection; to teach him to understand happiness to
the full, only to snatch it from him; to rob him of his future of
felicity; to slay his happiness not merely today, but as long as
his life lasts, by poisoning every hour of it and every thought
--this I call a fearful crime!"
"Monsieur----"
"I cannot allow you to answer me yet.
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