: I will not shut mine. I welcome you
to my domains, my free prairies, my woods. How am I the gainer, you
may say? Could I not long since have had you at any hour? Were you
not invaded, possessed, filled with my flame? I changed your blood
and renewed it: not a vein in your body where I do not flow. You know
not yourself how utterly you are mine. But our wedding has yet to be
celebrated with all the forms. I have some manners, and feel rather
scrupulous. Let us be one for everlasting."

"Oh! sir, in my present state, what should I say? For a long, long
while back have I felt, too truly felt, that you were all my fate.
With evil intent you caressed me, loaded me with favours, and made me
rich, in order at length to cast me down. Yesterday, when the black
greyhound bit my poor naked flesh, its teeth scorched me, and I said,
''Tis he!' At night when that daughter of Herodias with her foul
language scared the company, somebody put them up to the promising her
my blood; and that was you!"

"True; but 'twas I who saved you and brought you hither. I did
everything, as you have guessed. I ruined you, and why? That I might
have you all to myself. To speak frankly, I was tired of your husband.
You took to haggling and pettifogging: far otherwise do I go to work;
I want all or none. This is why I have moulded and drilled you,
polished and ripened you, for my own behoof. Such, you see, is my
delicacy of taste. I don't take, as people imagine, those foolish
souls who would give themselves up at once. I prefer the choicer
spirits, who have reached a certain dainty stage of fury and despair.
Stop: I must let you know how pleasant you look at this moment. You
are a great beauty, a most desirable soul. I have loved you ever so
long, but now I am hungering for you.

"I will do things on a large scale, not being one of those husbands
who reckon with their betrothed. If you wanted only riches, you should
have them in a trice. If you wanted to be queen in the stead of Joan
of Navarre, that too, though difficult, should be done, and the King
would not lose much thereby in the matter of pride and haughtiness. My
wife is greater than a queen. But, come, tell me what you wish."

"Sir, I ask only for the power of doing evil."

"A delightful answer, very delightful! Have I not cause to love you?
In reality those words contain all the law and all the prophets. Since
you have made so good a choice, all the rest shall be thrown in, over
and ab