“And this, after all—­”

“After what?  After you found me, or rather I found you—­you, the critic, the arbiter of the greenroom, the highly-organised do-nothings—­teaching others how to do nothing most gracefully; the would-be Goethe who must, for the sake of his own self-development, try experiments on every weak woman whom he met.  And I, the new phenomenon, whom you must appreciate to show your own taste, patronise to show your own liberality, develop to show your own insight into character.  You found yourself mistaken!  You had attempted to play with the tigress—­and behold she was talons; to angle for the silly fish—­and behold the fish was the better angler, and caught you.”

“Marie, have mercy!  Is your heart iron?”

“No; but fire, as my name shows:”  and she stood looking down on him with a glare of dreadful beauty.

“Fire, indeed!”

“Yes, fire, that I may scorch you, kindle you, madden you, to do my work, and wear the heart of fire which I wear day and night!”

Stangrave looked at her startled.  Was she mad?  Her face did not say so; her brow was white, her features calm, her eye fierce and contemptuous, but clear, steady, full of meaning.

“So you know Mr. Thurnall?” said she, after a while.

“Yes; why do you ask?”

“Because he is the only friend I have on earth.”

“The only friend, Marie?”

“The only one,” answered she calmly, “who, seeing the right, has gone and done it forthwith.  When did you see him last?”

“I have not been acquainted with Mr. Thurnall for some years,” said Stangrave, haughtily.

“In plain words, you have quarrelled with him?”

Stangrave bit his lip.

“He and I had a difference.  He insulted my nation, and we parted.”

She laughed a long, loud, bitter laugh, which rang through Stangrave’s ears.

“Insulted your nation?  And on what grounds, pray?”

“About that accursed slavery question!”

La Cordifiamma looked at him with firm-closed lips a while.

“So then!  I was not aware of this!  Even so long ago you saw the Sangreal, and did not know it when you saw it.  No wonder that since then you have been staring at it for months, in your very hands, played with it, admired it, made verses about it, to show off your own taste:  and yet were blind to it the whole time!  Farewell, then!”

“Marie, what do you mean?” and Stangrave caught both her hands.

“Hush, if you please.  I know you are eloquent enough, when you choose, though you have been somewhat dumb and monosyllabic to-night in the presence of the actress whom you undertook to educate.  But I know that you can be eloquent, so spare me any brilliant appeals, which can only go to prove that already settled fact.  Between you and me lie two great gulfs.  The one I have told you of; and from it I shrink.  The other I have not told you of; from it you would shrink.”