He seldom made a mistake in his methods with people. He left nothing to
chance; he led up the conversation to the right point, fired his bomb,
and then showed absolute indifference. To display interest in a move,
when one was really interested, was always a point to the adversary. He
maintained interest could be simulated when necessary, but must never be
shown when real. So he left his niece in silence, while she pondered
over his bargain, knowing full well what would be the result. She got up
from her chair and leaned upon the back of it, while her face looked
white as death in the dying afternoon's light.

"Can you realize what my life was like with Ladislaus?" she hissed. "A
plaything for his brutal pleasures, to begin with; a decoy duck to trap
the other men, I found afterwards; tortured and insulted from morning to
night. I hated him always, but he seemed so kind beforehand--kind to my
darling mother, whom you were leaving to die."--Here Francis Markrute
winced and a look of pain came into his hard face while he raised a hand
in protest and then dropped it again, as his niece went on--"And she
was beginning to be ill even at that time and we were so poor--so I
married him."

Then she swept toward the door with her empress air, the rather shabby,
dark dress making a swirl behind her; and as she got there she turned
and spoke again, with her hand on the bronze tracery of the fingerplate,
making, unconsciously, a highly dramatic picture, as a sudden last ray
of the sinking sun shot out and struck the glory of her hair, turning it
to flame above her brow.

"I tell you it is too much," she said, with almost a sob in her voice.
"I will not do it." And then she went out and closed the door.