And then she had reviled me! As I took it
all in, and began to comprehend also the more remote
results, and how completely her move had made further
progress on my part impossible, I hated her. She had
tricked me with her gracious ways and her slow-coming
smile. And, after all--for what she had said--it was
this man's life or mine. 'What had I done that another
man would not do? MON DIEU! in the future there was
nothing I would not do. I would make her smart for
those words of hers! I would bring her to her knees!
Still, hot as I was, an hour might have restored me to
coolness. But when I started to return, I fell into a
fresh rage, for I remembered that I did not know my way
out of the maze of rides and paths into which she had
drawn me; and this and the mishaps which followed, kept
my rage hot. For a full hour I wandered in the wood,
unable, though I knew where the village lay, to find any
track which led continuously in one direction.
Whenever, at the end of each attempt, the thicket
brought me up short, I fancied that I heard her laughing
on the farther side of the brake; and the ignominy of
this chance punishment, and the check which the
confinement placed on my rage, almost maddened me.
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