Mechanically her head moved in assent, her eyes, dilated with fear, were like the dark, fascinated eyes of some helpless bird.
"You never saw this young man?" the bey pursued. "And yet you were ready to run off with him--a pretty character you give yourself, my snowdrop!--and you liked his eyes and hastened to obey?"
Aimée was silent. From his ignominy upon the floor Ryder hastened to interpose.
"It is true she had never seen me, but I had already written to her and acquainted her with the story. I tried to reach her first through her father but that was useless so I resorted to these desperate means."
"Oh you wrote! And you told her you would be here, and murder her husband--"
"I told her nothing of the kind. She didn't know that I was coming until I spoke to her here, and then she had no idea that I was going to wait and carry her off--"
"In the name of Allah! Do you take me for a dolt, an ass? You, with your writing and your masquerade and your secrets! Do any families try to recover their relatives with such means? Daughter or step-daughter, it is nothing to me--"
"But it is true," Aimée insisted, in a trembling voice. "My father was Paul Delcassé--"
"_Yahrak Kiddisak man rabbabk_--curse the man who brought thee up! Delcassé or devil, it is Tewfick Pasha who is your step-father, your guardian, who gave you to me for wife--what has your genealogy to do with this affront upon my honor?"
"But he did not intend to affront your honor--only to aid the family in France--"
"I ask you again, do I resemble an ass that you should put such a burden of lies upon me? As if I did not know why young men risked their lives, in the dead of night, in other men's rooms! If I did not know what turns their brains to mush and their hearts to leading strings! And you--you--you little white rose of seclusion--!"
His venom leaped out at her in his voice. It was a terrible voice, the cold, grating menace of a madman.
"You, who had never seen this man but who fluttered to him like a white moth to a fire, you who cowered from your husband's hand but who turned to follow this strange dog into the streets--there will be care taken of you later. But now--you complained of fatigue. Surely this scene is overtaxing for your delicacy. If you will come to your rooms--"