"Yes, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said I, a little indignantly. "It ain't fair to coax an innocent into _your_ sort of game and fleece him of his little all." She laughed--beautiful white teeth, cruel like her red lips. "It's all true--all he told you," she replied. "All true, on my honor." Every season Washington's strange mixture of classes and conditions and nations furnishes at least one sensation of some kind or other. But, used as I am to surprises until they have ceased to surprise, this took me quite aback. "Do you love him, Nadeshda--really?" She quite closed her eyes and said in a strange, slow undertone: "He's my master. The blood in my veins flowed straight from the savage wilderness. And he comes from there, and I don't dare disobey him. I'd do anything he said. And when we're married I'll never glance at another man--if he saw me he'd kill me. Ah, you don't understand--you're too--too civilized. Now, I think I should love him better if he'd beat me." I laughed--it was too ridiculous, especially as she was plainly in earnest. She laughed, too, and added: "I think some day I'll try to make him do it. He's afraid of me, too. And he may well be, for I--well, he belongs to _me_, you see, and I _will_ have what's mine!" Yes, she would--I believe her absolutely. And I must say I like her at last, for all her extremely uncanny way of loving and of liking to be loved. I suppose she's only a primeval woman--I believe the primeval woman fancied the lover who lay in wait and brought her down with a club. I begin to understand Robert Gunton, too--that is, the side of his nature she's roused. "Do you believe us?" she asked. "Yes, I do," said I, "and I apologize to you. I've been thinking of you all along as--fascinating, of course, but--mercenary." "Ah, but so I am!" she exclaimed. "It breaks my heart to marry this poor man--and of such a vulgar family--even among you funny Americans. But"--she threw up her arms and her shoulders and let them drop in a gesture of tragicomic helplessness--"I must have him; I must be his slave." I can't imagine how it's going to end, as her people will never let her marry him. Possibly, if "ma" Burke were to persuade the Senator to settle a large sum on her--but that's wild, even if Gunton would consent. I can imagine what a roar he'd give if such a thing were proposed. He'll insist on having her on his own terms. As if his insisting would do any good!