Isabelle, frightened by the expression of his countenance as he spoke thus, instinctively pushed her chair farther away from his, and felt for Chiquita’s knife.  But the wily duke, seeing that he had made a mistake, instantly changed his tone, and begging her pardon most humbly for his vehemence, endeavoured to persuade her, by many specious arguments, that she was wrong in persistently turning a deaf ear to his suit—­setting forth at length, and in glowing words, all the advantages that would accrue to her if she would but yield to his wishes, and describing the happiness in store for her.  While he was thus eloquently pleading his cause, Isabelle, who had given him only a divided attention, thought that she heard a peculiar little noise in the direction whence the longed-for aid was to come, and fearing that Vallombreuse might hear it also, hastened to answer him the instant that he paused, in a way to vex him still further—­for she preferred his anger to his love-making.  Also, she hoped that by quarrelling with him she would be able to prevent his perceiving the suspicious little sound—­now growing louder and more noticeable.

“The happiness that you so eloquently describe, my lord, would be for me a disgrace, which I am resolved to escape by death, if all other means fail me.  You never shall have me living.  Formerly I regarded you with indifference, but now I both hate and despise you, for your infamous, outrageous and violent behaviour to me, your helpless victim.  Yes, I may as well tell you openly—­and I glory in it—­that I do love the Baron de Sigognac, whom you have more than once so basely tried to assassinate, through your miserable hired ruffians.”

The strange noise still kept on, and Isabelle raised her voice to drown it.  At her audacious, defiant words, so distinctly and impressively enunciated—­hurled at him, as it were—­Vallombreuse turned pale, and his eyes flashed ominously; a light foam gathered about the corners of his mouth, and he laid hold of the handle of his sword.  For an instant he thought of killing Isabelle himself, then and there.  If he could not have her, at least no one else should.  But he relinquished that idea almost as soon as it occurred to him, and with a hard, forced laugh said, as he sprang up and advanced impetuously towards Isabelle, who retreated before him: 

“Now, by all the devils in hell, I cannot help admiring you immensely in this mood.  It is a new role for you, and you are deucedly charming in it.  You have got such a splendid colour, and your eyes are so bright—­you are superb, I declare.  I am greatly flattered at your blazing out into such dazzling beauty on my account—­upon my word I am.  You have done well to speak out openly—­I hate deceit.  So you love de Sigognac, do you?  So much the better, say I—­it will be all the sweeter to call you mine.  It will be a pleasing variety to press ardent kisses upon sweet lips that say ‘I hate you,’ instead of the insipid, everlasting ‘I love you,’ that one gets a surfeit of from all the pretty women of one’s acquaintance.”