There was a short black eruption.

Alvan controlled it, to ask hastily what the baroness thought and what she had heard of Clotilde.

Tresten made sign that it was nothing of the best.
'See! my girl has hundreds of enemies, and I, only I, know her and can defend her--weak, base shallow trickster, traitress that she is!' cried Alvan, and came down in a thundershower upon her: 'Yesterday--the day before--when?
just now, here, in this room; gave herself--and now!' He bent, and immediately straightening his back, addressed Colonel von Tresten as her calumniator, 'Say your worst of her, and I say I will make of that girl the peerless woman of earth! I! in earnest! it's no dream.

She can be made....

O God! the beast has turned tail! I knew she could.