“I asked you not to—­”

“But with a sparkle in your eyes—­a challenge—­”

“I knew you for a nobleman; I thought you a gentleman,” said Betty Dalrymple spiritedly.

Prince Boris made a savage gesture.  “You thought—­” He broke off.  “I will tell you what you thought:  That after amusing yourself with me you could say, ’Va-t-en!’ with a wave of the hand.  As if I were a clod like those we once had under us!  American girls would make serfs of their admirers.  Their men,” contemptuously, “are fools where their women are concerned.  You dismiss them; they walk away meekly.  Another comes. Voila!” He snapped his fingers.  “The game goes on.”

A spark appeared in her eyes.  “Don’t you think you are slightly insulting?” she asked in a low tense tone.

“Is it not the truth?  And more”—­with a harsh laugh—­“I am even told that in your wonderful country the rejected suitor—­mon Dieu!—­often acts as best man at the wedding—­that the body-guard on the holy occasion may be composed of a sad but sentimental phalanx from the army of the refused.  But with us Russians these matters are different.  We can not thus lightly control affairs of the heart; they control us, and—­those who flirt, as you call it, must pay.  The code of our honor demands it—­”

“Your honor?” It was Betty Dalrymple who laughed now.

“You find that—­me—­very diverting?” slowly.  “But you will learn this is no jest.”

She disdained to answer and started toward a side door.

“No,” he said, stepping between her and the threshold.

“Be good enough!” Miss Dalrymple’s voice sounded imperiously; her eyes flashed.

“One moment!” He was fast losing self-control.  “You hold yourself from me—­refuse to listen to me.  Why?  Do you know what I think?” Vehemently.  The words of Sonia Turgeinov—­“Est ce qu’elle aime un autre?”—­flamed through his mind.  “That there is some one else; that there always was.  And that is the reason you were so gay—­so very gay.  You sought to forget—­”

A change came over Betty Dalrymple’s face; she seemed to grow whiter—­to become like ice—­

“You let me think there wasn’t any one; but there was.  That story of some one out west?—­you laughed it away as idle gossip.  And I believed you then—­but not now.  Who is he—­this American?” With a half-sneer.

“There is no one!—­there never has been!” said the girl with sudden passion, almost wildly.  “I told you the truth.”

“Ah,” said Prince Boris.  “You speak with feeling.  When a woman denies in a voice like that—­”

“Let me by!” The violet eyes were black now.

“Not yet!” He studied her—­the cheeks aflame like roses.  “He shall never have you, that some one—­I will meet him and kill him first—­I swear it—­”

“Let me by!”

“Carissima! Your eyes are like stars—­the stars that look down on one alone on the wild steppe.  Your lips are red flowers—­poppies to lure to destruction.  They are cruel, but the more beautiful—­”