He was silent, and busied himself in unstrapping his canvas and paint-box with a great deal of almost vicious energy. In a few moments he had gained sufficient composure to look full at her, and taking his palette in hand, he began dabbing on the colors, talking between whiles.
"Do you suppose," he said, keeping his voice carefully subdued, "that you can intimidate me by showing me a score of wretched black rascals whom you have placed on guard to defend you out there? And why did you place them on guard? You must have been afraid of me! Pardieu! I could snatch you out of their midst, if I chose! You do not know me; if you did, you would understand that not all the world, armed to the teeth should balk me of my desires! But I have been too hasty--that I own,--I can wait." He raised his eyes and saw that she was listening with an air of amused indifference. "I shall have to mix strange tints in your portrait, ma belle! It is difficult to find the exact hue of your skin--there is rose and brown in it; and there is yet another color which I must evolve while working,--and it is not the hue of health. It is something dark and suggestive of death; I hope you are not destined to an early grave! And yet, why not? It is better that a beautiful woman should die in her beauty than live to become old and tiresome ..."
"You think that?" interrupted the Ziska suddenly, smiling somewhat coldly.
"I do, most honestly. Had I lived in the early days of civilization, when men were allowed to have as many women as they could provide for, I would have mercifully killed any sweet favorite as soon as her beauty began to wane. A lovely woman, dead in her first exquisite youth,--how beautiful a subject for the mind to dwell upon! How it suggests all manner of poetic fancies and graceful threnodies! But a woman grown old, who has outlived all passion and is a mere bundle of fat, or a mummy of skin and bone,--what poetry does her existence suggest? How can she appeal to art or sentiment? She is a misery to herself and an eyesore to others. Yes, Princess, believe me,--Love first, and Death afterwards, are woman's best friends."
"You believe in Death?" ask the Princess, looking steadily at him.
"It is the only thing I do believe in," he answered lightly. "It is a fact that will bear examination, but not contradiction. May I ask you to turn your head slightly to the left--so! Yes, that will do; if I can catch the look in your eyes that gleams there now,-- the look of intense, burning, greedy cruelty which is so murderously fascinating, I shall be content."