moved, he said no word,--she too was silent. So passed or seemed
to pass some minutes,--minutes that were almost terrible in the
weight of mysterious meaning they held unuttered. Then, with a
half-smothered cry, he suddenly released her and sprang erect.

"Love!" he cried, ... "Nay!--'tis a word for children and angels!
--not for me! What have I to do with love? ... what hast thou? ...
thou, Lysia, who dost make the lives of men thy sport and their
torments thy mockery! There is no name for this fever that
consumes me when I look upon thee, ... no name for this unquiet
ravishment that draws me to thee in mingled bliss and agony! If I
must perish of mine own bitter-sweet frenzy, let me be slain now
and most utterly, ... but Love has no abiding-place 'twixt me and
thee, Lysia! ... Love! ... ah, no, no! ... speak no more of love
... it hath a charmed sound, recalling to my soul some glory I
have lost!"

He spoke wildly, incoherently, scarcely knowing what he said, and
she, half lying on her couch of roses, looked at him curiously,
with somber, meditative eyes. A smile of delicate derision parted
her lips.

"Of a truth, our late feasting hath roused in thee a most singular
delirium!" she murmured indolently with a touch of cold amusement
in her accents--"Thou dost seem to dwell in the Past rather than
the Present! What ails thee? ... Come hither--closer!"--and she
stretched out her lovely arms on which the twisted diamond snakes
glittered in such flashing coils,--"Come! ... or is thy manful
guise mere feigning, and dost thou fear me?"