She stood holding on to the rough oak table like a deer at bay, her
face deadly white, and her eyes wide and staring.
Then stealthily the Prince drew nearer, and with a spring seized her
and clasped her in his arms.
"Now, now, you shall belong to me," he cried. "You are mine at last,
and you shall pay for the hours of pain you have made me suffer!" and
he rained mad kisses on her trembling lips.
A ghastly terror shook Tamara. This man whom she loved, to whom in
happier circumstances she might have ceded all that he asked, now only
filled her with frantic fear. But she would not give in, she would
rather die than be conquered.
"Gritzko--oh, Gritzko! please--please don't!" she cried, almost
suffocated.
But she knew as she looked at him that he was beyond all hearing.
His splendid eyes blazed with the passion of a wild beast. She knew if
she resisted him he would kill her. Well, better death than this
hideous disgrace.
He held her from him for a second, and then lifted her in his arms.
But with the strength of terrified madness she grasped his wounded arm,
and in the second in which he made a sudden wince, she gave an eel-like
twist and slipped from his grasp, and as she did so she seized the
pistol in his belt and stood erect while she placed the muzzle to her
own white forehead.
"Touch me again, and I will shoot!" she gasped, and sank down on the
bench almost exhausted behind the rough wooden table.
He made a step forward, but she lifted the pistol again to her head
and leant her arm on the board to steady herself. And thus they glared
at one another, the hunter and the hunted.
"This is very clever of you, Madame," he said; "but do you think it
will avail you anything? You can sit like that all night, if you wish,
but before dawn I will take you."
Tamara did not answer.
Then he flung himself on the couch and lit a cigarette, and all that
was savage and cruel in him flamed from his eyes.
"My God! what do you think it has been like since the beginning?" he
said. "Your silly prudish fears and airs. And still I loved you--madly
loved you. And since the night when I kissed your sweet lips you have
made me go through hell--cold and provoking and disdainful, and last
night when you defied me, then I determined you should belong to me by
force; and now it is only a question of time. No power in heaven or
earth can save you--Ah! if you had been different, how happy we might
have been! But it is too late; the devil has won, and soon I will do
what I please."