have cast myself down.
"Oh no! Why so? I believe you," she said, but in such a
manner--in the manner of which, at times, she was a mistress--and
with such a note of disdain and viperish arrogance in her tone,
that God knows I could have killed her.
Yes, at that moment she stood in peril. I had not lied to her
about that.
"Surely you are not a coward?" suddenly she asked me.
"I do not know," I replied. "Perhaps I am, but I do not know.
I have long given up thinking about such things."
"If I said to you, 'Kill that man,' would you kill him?"
"Whom?"
"Whomsoever I wish?"
"The Frenchman?"
"Do not ask me questions; return me answers. I repeat,
whomsoever I wish? I desire to see if you were speaking
seriously just now."
She awaited my reply with such gravity and impatience that I
found the situation unpleasant.
"Do YOU, rather, tell me," I said, "what is going on here? Why
do you seem half-afraid of me? I can see for myself what is
wrong. You are the step-daughter of a ruined and insensate man
who is smitten with love for this devil of a Blanche. And there
is this Frenchman, too, with his mysterious influence over you.
Yet, you actually ask me such a question! If you do not tell me
how things stand, I shall have to put in my oar and do something.
Are you ashamed to be frank with me? Are you shy of me? "
"I am not going to talk to you on that subject. I have asked
you a question, and am waiting for an answer."
"Well, then--I will kill whomsoever you wish," I said. "But are
you REALLY going to bid me do such deeds?"
"Why should you think that I am going to let you off? I shall
bid you do it, or else renounce me. Could you ever do the
latter? No, you know that you couldn't. You would first kill
whom I had bidden you, and then kill ME for having dared to send
you away!"
Something seemed to strike upon my brain as I heard these words.
Of course, at the time I took them half in jest and half as a
challenge; yet, she had spoken them with great seriousness. I
felt thunderstruck that she should so express herself, that she
should assert such a right over me, that she should assume such
authority and say outright: "Either you kill whom I bid you, or
I will have nothing more to do with you." Indeed, in what she
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