what you would do then."

"I do not believe that any woman is as beautiful as I am," answered the
Georgian, with the quiet simplicity of a savage.

"But if there were one, and you saw her?" insisted the man, to see what
she would say.

"We could not both live. One of us would kill the other."

"I believe you would," said Jacopo, watching her face.

She had forgotten his presence while she spoke; a fierce hardness had
come into her eyes, and her upper lip was a little raised, in a cruel
expression, just showing her teeth. He was surprised.

"I never saw you like that," he said.

"You should not make me think of killing," she answered, suddenly
leaving her seat and kneeling beside him on the divan. "It is not good
to think too much of killing--it makes one wish to do it."

"Then try and kill me with kisses," he said, looking into her eyes, that
were growing tender again.

"You would not know you were dying," she whispered, her lips quite close
to his.

As she kissed him, she loosened the collar from his white throat, and
smoothed his thick hair back from his forehead upon the pillow, and she