“Fear!” she cried, with a camp oath, whose blasphemy was happily unintelligible to her listener.  “Fear!  You think I fear you!—­the darling of the army, who saved the squadron at Zaraila, who has seen a thousand days of bloodshed, who has killed as many men with her own hand as any Lascar among them all—­fear you, you hothouse flower, you paradise-bird, you silver pheasant, who never did aught but spread your dainty colors in the sun, and never earned so much as the right to eat a pierce of black bread, if you had your deserts!  Fear you—­I!  Why! do you not know that I could kill you where you stand as easily as I could wring the neck of any one of those gold-winged orioles that flew above your head to-day, and who have more right to live than you, for they do at least labor in their own fashion for their food, and their drink, and their dwelling?  Dieu de Dieu!  Why, I have killed Arabs, I tell you—­great, gaunt, grim men—­and made them bite the dust under my fire.  Do you think I would check for a moment at dealing you death, you beautiful, useless, honeyed, poisoned, painted exotic, that has every wind tempered to you, and thinks the world only made to bear the fall of your foot!”

The fury of words was poured out without pause, and with an intense passion vibrating through them; the wine was hot in her veins, the hate was hot in her heart; her eyes glittered with murderous meaning, and she darted with one swift bound to the side of the rival she loathed, with the pistol half out of her belt; she expected to see the one she threatened recoil, quail, hear the threat in terror; she mistook the nature with which she dealt.  Venetia Corona never moved, never gave a sign of the amazement that awoke in her; but she put her hand out and clasped the barrel of the weapon, while her eyes looked down into the flashing, looming, ferocious ones that menaced her, with calm, contemptuous rebuke, in which something of infinite pity was mingled.

“Child, are you mad?” she said gravely.  “Brave natures do not stoop to assassination, which you seem to deify.  If you have any reason to feel evil against me, tell me what it is.  I always repair a wrong, if I can.  But as for those threats, they are most absurd if you do not mean them; they are most wicked if you do.”

The tranquil, unmoved, serious words stilled the vehement passion she rebuked with a strange and irresistible power; under her gaze the savage lust in Cigarette’s eyes died out, and their lids drooped over them; the dusky, scarlet color failed from her cheeks; for the first time in her life she felt humiliated, vanquished, awed.  If this “aristocrat” had shown one sign of fear, one trace of apprehension, all her violent and reckless hatred would have reigned on, and, it might have been, have rushed from threat to execution; but showing the only quality, that of courage, for which she had respect, her great rival confused and disarmed her.  She was only sensible, with a vivid, agonizing sense of shame, that her only cause of hatred against this woman was that he loved her.  And this she would have died a thousand deaths rather than have acknowledged.