Then she drew herself up, and a strange and most pitiful pride appeared on her face.

I did not know the meaning of it.

She leant forward towards me, blushing a little, and whispered my name.
"I'm waiting to hear you," said I; my voice came hard, stern, and cold.
"You'll be cruel to me, I know you will," she cried petulantly.
"On my life, no," said I."What is it you want to say ?" She was like a child who shows you some loved forbidden toy that she should not have, but prizes above all her trifles; there was that sly joy, that ashamed exultation in her face.
"I have promises," she whispered, clasping her hands and nodding her head at me.

"Ah, they make songs on me, and laugh at me, and Castlemaine looks at me as though I were the street-dirt under her feet.

But they shall see! Ay, they shall see that I can match them!" She sprang to her feet in reckless merriment, crying, "Shall I make a pretty countess, Simon ?" She came near to me and whispered with a mysterious air, "Simon, Simon!" I looked up at her sparkling eyes.
"Simon, what's he whom you serve, whom you're proud to serve?
Who is he, I say ?" She broke into a laugh of triumph.
But I, hearing her laugh, and finding my heart filled with a sudden terror, spread my hands over my eyes and fell back heavily in my chair, like a sick man or a drunken.