"You devil!" He suddenly raised his fist. Leah never winced, although he towered over her with his mouth working and his eyes animal in their unconsidering passion. It was impossible to strike, although his heart cried out that she ought to die. With an oath--it came out savagely this time--the fist dropped. "I'll have a divorce," muttered Jim, and plunged for the door. "Because I kissed a man. Nonsense." "Kissin' doesn't stop at kissin'." "Not with you, perhaps." "Leah!" he turned and reclosed the door, which his rage had wrenched open. "I know you've got a beastly tongue, and all that; but I could have sworn that you were as pure as my mother." "Well, and so you can." "What? After you confessin' that you kissed Demetrius?" "Ugh!" Leah shuddered, as a picture after the style of Wiertz rose to her mind's eye. "I kissed a thing which was once Demetrius." "Is he dead, then?" "Better if he were. Ugh! That kiss was the most horrible thing I ever had to do in my life." "Why did you do it, then?" "I was forced to," she said faintly, and nausea made her place a handkerchief suddenly to her lips. The Duke returned for the third time to his seat and looked into her changing face with round inquiring eyes. "There's somethin' in this I don't catch on to," he muttered; then, with gruff tenderness, and a timid caress from which Leah did not shrink, "What is it, old girl?" The Duchess laughed. It was amusing to find her husband playing the spring bachelor. "I believe you love me," said she, recovering her colour. "You know I do, only you keep me at arm's length." "Have I not cause?" "You wouldn't have, if you behaved as a fellow's wife should," said the Duke, bluntly. "Drop skirtin' round the bush and plunge in." Leah admired and respected him in this peremptory mood, and for once showed no disposition to use her sharp tongue. Instinct told her that she had at length reached the end of Jim's tether, and that her easy-going bulldog was inclined to curl his lips. Therefore did she relate picturesquely and half-truthfully all her doings since the beginning of things in the gallery. For the time being her story broke off with the return of his Grace. Jim listened with praiseworthy self-control. He certainly growled and scowled at the relation of that early loss, which had bound Demetrius to the service of the woman who betrayed him; but her artless confession robbed the butterfly caress of half its iniquity. Sometimes he grunted admiration of her pluck during the perils of his absence, and grinned when she detailed the melodramatic interview with Strange. Most of the time his eyes searched her face to make certain that she was telling the truth. He believed she was, although she kept back the precise way in which Demetrius had departed for Siberia. But she laid enough of this particular blame on Aksakoff's back to make Jim swear.