His white cheeks grew mottled, and his little eyes looked up with a mighty evil gleam in their cruel blue.
A moment he stayed so, then he rose up.

He released her hands as she had bidden him, but he clutched her arms instead, which was yet worse.
"Valentina," he said, in a voice that was far from steady, "why do you use me thus unkindly ?" "But I do not," she protested wearily, drawing back with a shudder from the white face that was so near her own, inspiring her with a loathing she could not repress.

"I would not have your Highness look foolish, and you cannot conceive how----" "Can you conceive how deeply, how passionately I love you ?" he broke in, his grasp tightening.
"My lord, you are hurting me!" "And are you not hurting me ?" he snarled.

"What is a pinched arm when compared with such wounds as your eyes are dealing me?
Are you not----" She had twisted from his grasp, and in a bound she had reached the window-door through which her attendants had passed.
"Valentina!" he cried, as he sprang after her, and it was more like the growl of a beast than the cry of a lover.

He caught her, and with scant ceremony he dragged her back into the room.
At this, her latent loathing, contempt and indignation rose up in arms.
Never had she heard tell of a woman of her rank being used in this fashion.