'So you tamper with my--with that woman!' she said scornfully.
The general shrugged his shoulders and laughed grimly. 'Why not?' he said. 'What are waiting-women and the like made for, if not to be bribed--or slapped?'
She hated him for that sly hit--if never before; but she controlled herself. She would throw the burden on him.
He read the thought, and it led him to change his tone. There was a gloomy fire in his eyes, and smouldering passion in his voice, when he spoke again.
'Well, Countess,' he said, 'I am here for your answer.'
'To the question I asked you some time ago,' he rejoined, dwelling on her with sullen eyes. 'I asked you to be my wife. Your answer?'
'Prythee!' she said proudly, 'this is a strange way of wooing.'
'It is not of my choice that I woo in company,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders. 'My answer; that is all I want--and you.'
'Then you shall have the first, and not the last,' she exclaimed on a sudden impulse. 'No, no--a hundred times no! If you do not see that by pressing me now,' she continued impetuously, 'when I am alone, friendless, and unprotected, you insult me, you should see it, and I do.'
For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed; but his voice, notwithstanding his mastery over it and in spite of that laugh, shook with rage and resentment. 'As I expected,' he said. 'I knew last night that you hated me. You have been playing a part throughout. You loathe me. Yes, madam, you may wince,' he continued bitterly, 'for you shall still be my wife; and when you are my wife we will talk of that.'
'Never!' she said, with a brave face; but her heart beat wildly, and a mist rose before her eyes.
He laughed. 'My legions are round me,' he said. 'Where are yours?'
'You are a gentleman,' she answered with an effort. 'You will let me go.'
'There are those who will know how to avenge me.'
He laughed again. 'I do not know them, Countess,' he said contemptuously. 'For Hesse Cassel, he has his hands full at Nuremberg, and will be likely, when Wallenstein has done with him, to need help himself. The King of Sweden--the brightest morning ends soonest in rain--and he will end at Nuremberg. Bernhard of Weimar, Leuchtenstein, all the fanatics fall with him. Only the banner of the Free Companies stands and waves ever the wider. Be advised,' he continued grimly. 'Bend, Countess, or I have the means to break you.'