But not then.
"Will you swear that it is as you say ?" I asked her, white with passion.
As I have said, I was standing over her and very close.

Her answer now was suddenly to rise.

Like a snake came she gliding upwards into my arms until she lay against my breast, her face upturned, her eyes languidly veiled, her lips a-pout.
"Can you do me so great a wrong, thinking you love me, knowing that I love you ?" she asked me.
For an instant we swayed together in that sweetly hideous embrace.

I was as a man sapped of all strength by some portentous struggle.

I trembled from head to foot.