"I am not going to talk to you on that subject. I have asked
you a question, and am waiting for an answer."

"Well, then--I will kill whomsoever you wish," I said. "But are
you REALLY going to bid me do such deeds?"

"Why should you think that I am going to let you off? I shall
bid you do it, or else renounce me. Could you ever do the
latter? No, you know that you couldn't. You would first kill
whom I had bidden you, and then kill ME for having dared to send
you away!"

Something seemed to strike upon my brain as I heard these words.
Of course, at the time I took them half in jest and half as a
challenge; yet, she had spoken them with great seriousness. I
felt thunderstruck that she should so express herself, that she
should assert such a right over me, that she should assume such
authority and say outright: "Either you kill whom I bid you, or
I will have nothing more to do with you." Indeed, in what she
had said there was something so cynical and unveiled as to pass
all bounds. For how could she ever regard me as the same after
the killing was done? This was more than slavery and abasement;
it was sufficient to bring a man back to his right senses. Yet,
despite the outrageous improbability of our conversation, my
heart shook within me.

Suddenly, she burst out laughing. We were seated on a bench near
the spot where the children were playing--just opposite the point
in the alley-way before the Casino where the carriages drew up