"You dare to love this man--you--vowed to the Church and to the service of the Gesù, whose secrets you hold? You dare not!"
"I dare all," she answered calmly. "This is not a matter of daring. It comes! It is! I did not make it. It does not go at my bidding, nor at yours. Besides, I did not bid it go. For one blessed moment I had at least the sensation of a possible happiness!"
"Nevertheless, he shamed you, rejected you, like the meanest whining lap-dog your foot spurns aside out of your path. He has done this to you--Valentine la Niña, called the Most Beautiful--to you, the King's daughter an you liked, an Infanta of Spain! Have you thought of that?"
"Thought?" she said, tapping her little foot on the floor, and with her strong right hand swaying the chair to and fro like a feather--"have I thought of it? What else have I done for many days and weeks? But whether he will love me or cast me off--the die is thrown. I am his and not another's. I may take revenge--for that is in my blood. I may cause him to suffer as he has made me suffer--and the woman also--especially the woman, the spy's daughter! But that does not alter the fact. I am his, and if he would, even when chained to the oar of the galley, a slave among slaves--he could whistle me to his side like a fawning dog! For I am his slave--his slave!"
The last words were spoken almost inaudibly, as if to herself.
"And to the galleys he shall go!" said the Jesuit, "you have said it, and the idea is a good one. There he will be out of mischief. Yet he can be produced, if, in the time to come, his cousin the Bearnais, arrived at the crown of France, has time to make inquiries after him!"
A knife glittered suddenly before the eyes of the Jesuit. It was in the firm white hand of the girl vowed to the Society.
"See," she hissed, letting each word drop slowly from her lips, "see, Doctor Mariana, my uncle, you are not afraid of death--I know--but you do not wish to die now. There are so many things unfinished--so much yet to do. I know you, uncle! Now let me take my will of this young man. Afterwards I am at your service--for ever--for ever--more faithfully than before!"
"How can I trust you?" said the Jesuit; "to-morrow you might go mad again!"