The Haunted Chamber | Page 9

mean to go through your part
without it?" Florence asks, disdaining to notice his words, or to betray
interest in anything except the business that has brought them together.
"I know my part by heart," he responds, in a strange voice.
"Then begin," she commands somewhat imperiously; the very
insolence of her air only gives an additional touch to her extreme
beauty and fires his ardor.
"You desire me to begin?" he asks unsteadily.
"If you wish it."
"Do you wish it?"
"I desire nothing more intensely than to get this rehearsal over," she
replies impatiently.
"You take no pains indeed to hide your scorn of me," says Dynecourt
bitterly.
"I regret it, if I have at any time treated you with incivility," returns
Florence, with averted eyes and with increasing coldness. "Yet I must
always think that, for whatever has happened, you have only yourself to
blame."
"Is it a crime to love you?" he demands boldly.
"Sir," she exclaims indignantly, and raising her beautiful eyes to his for
a moment, "I must request you will never speak to me of love. There is
neither sympathy nor common friendliness between us. You are well
aware with what sentiments I regard you."
"But, why am I alone to be treated with contempt?" he asks, with

sudden passion. "All other men of your acquaintance are graciously
received by you, are met with smiles and kindly words. Upon me alone
your eyes rest, when they deign to glance in my direction, with marked
disfavor. All the world can see it. I am signaled out from the others as
one to be slighted and spurned."
"Your forget yourself," says Florence contemptuously. "I have met you
here to-day to rehearse our parts for next Tuesday evening, not to listen
to any insolent words you may wish to address to me. Let us
begin"--opening her book. "If you know your part, go on."
"I know my part only too well; it is to worship you madly, hopelessly.
Your very cruelty only serves to heighten my passion. Florence, hear
me!"
"I will not," she says, her eyes flashing. She waves him back from her
as he endeavors to take her hand. "Is it not enough that I have been
persecuted by your attentions--attentions most hateful to me--for the
past year, but you must now obtrude them upon me here? You compel
me to tell you in plain words what my manner must have shown you
only too clearly--that you are distasteful to me in every way, that your
very presence troubles me, that your touch is abhorrent to me!"
"Ah," he says, stepping back as she hurls these words at him, and
regarding her with a face distorted by passion, "if I were the master
here, instead of the poor cousin--if I were Sir Adrian--your treatment of
me would be very different!"
At the mention of Sir Adrian's name the color dies out of her face and
she grows deadly pale. Her lips quiver, but her eyes do not droop.
"I do not understand you," she says proudly.
"Then you shall," responds Dynecourt. "Do you think I am blind, that I
can not see how you have given your proud heart to my cousin, that he
has conquered where other men have failed; that, even before he has
declared any love for you, you have, in spite of your pride, given all
your affection to him?"

"You insult me," cries Florence, with quivering lips. She looks faint,
and is trembling visibly. If this man has read her heart aright, may not
all the guests have read it too? May not even Adrian himself have
discovered her secret passion, and perhaps despised her for it, as being
unwomanly?
"And more," goes on Dynecourt, exulting in the torture he can see he is
inflicting; "though you thrust from you an honorable love for one that
lives only in your imagination, I will tell you that Sir Adrian has other
views, other intentions. I have reason to know that, when he marries,
the name of his bride will not be Florence Delmaine."
"Leave me, sir," cries Florence, rousing herself from her momentary
weakness, and speaking with all her old fire, "and never presume to
address me again. Go!"
She points with extended hand to the door at the lower end of the
gallery. So standing, with her eyes strangely bright, and her perfect
figure drawn up to its fullest height, she looks superb in her disdainful
beauty.
Dynecourt, losing his self-possession as he gazes upon her, suddenly
flings himself at her feet and catches her dress in his hands to detain
her.
"Have pity on me," he cries imploringly; "it is my unhappy love for you
that has driven me to speak thus! Why is Adrian to have all, and I