"
"If you have no other motive for detaining me, suffer me to depart," she
interrupted with some warmth. "Whether you be a wizard or not is of no
moment to me."
"And yet I dare swear that you will be of a different mind within five
minutes. A wizard is one who discloses things unknown to his fellow-men.
I am about to convince you that I can do this, and by convincing you I am
about to serve you."
"I seek neither conviction nor service at your hands," she answered.
"Your courtesy dumfounds me, Mademoiselle!"
"No less than does your insolence dumfound me," she retorted, with crimson
cheeks. "Do you forget, sir, that I know you for what you are--a gamester,
a libertine, a duellist, the murderer of my brother?"
"That your brother lives, Mademoiselle, is, methinks, sufficient proof that
I have not murdered him."
"You willed his death if you did not encompass it; so 't is all one. Do
you not understand that it is because my father receives you here, thanks
to M. de Mancini, your friend--a friendship easily understood from the
advantages you must derive from it--that I consent to endure your presence
and the insult of your glance? Is it not enough that I should do this, and
have you not wit enough to discern it, without adding to my shame by your
insolent call upon my courtesy?"
Her words cut me as no words that I ever heard, and, more than her words,
her tone of loathing and disgust unspeakable.
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