“Yes!” said Richard, savagely, from the other end of the room, “you care for the happiness of your dog.”

“A course se does,” Mumpsy was simperingly assured in the thick of his silky flanks.

Richard looked for his hat.  Mumpsy was deposited on the sofa in a twinkling.

“Now,” said the lady, “you must come and beg Mumpsy’s pardon, whether you meant to do it or no, because little doggies can’t tell that—­how should they?  And there’s poor Mumpsy thinking you’re a great terrible rival that tries to squash him all flat to nothing, on purpose, pretending you didn’t see; and he’s trembling, poor dear wee pet!  And I may love my dog, sir, if I like; and I do; and I won’t have him ill-treated, for he’s never been jealous of you, and he is a darling, ten times truer than men, and I love him fifty times better.  So come to him with me.”

First a smile changed Richard’s face; then laughing a melancholy laugh, he surrendered to her humour, and went through the form of begging Mumpsy’s pardon.

“The dear dog!  I do believe he saw we were getting dull,” said she.

“And immolated himself intentionally?  Noble animal!”

“Well, we’ll act as if we thought so.  Let us be gay, Richard, and not part like ancient fogies.  Where’s your fun?  You can rattle; why don’t you?  You haven’t seen me in one of my characters—­not Sir Julius:  wait a couple of minutes.”  She ran out.

A white visage reappeared behind a spring of flame.  Her black hair was scattered over her shoulders and fell half across her brows.  She moved slowly, and came up to him, fastening weird eyes on him, pointing a finger at the region of witches.  Sepulchral cadences accompanied the representation.  He did not listen, for he was thinking what a deadly charming and exquisitely horrid witch she was.  Something in the way her underlids worked seemed to remind him of a forgotten picture; but a veil hung on the picture.  There could be no analogy, for this was beautiful and devilish, and that, if he remembered rightly, had the beauty of seraphs.

His reflections and her performance were stayed by a shriek.  The spirits of wine had run over the plate she held to the floor.  She had the coolness to put the plate down on the table, while he stamped out the flame on the carpet.  Again she shrieked:  she thought she was on fire.  He fell on his knees and clasped her skirts all round, drawing his arms down them several times.

Still kneeling, he looked up, and asked, “Do you feel safe now?”

She bent her face glaring down till the ends of her hair touched his cheek.

Said she, “Do you?”

Was she a witch verily?  There was sorcery in her breath; sorcery in her hair:  the ends of it stung him like little snakes.

“How do I do it, Dick?” she flung back, laughing.

“Like you do everything, Bella,” he said, and took breath.

“There!  I won’t be a witch; I won’t be a witch:  they may burn me to a cinder, but I won’t be a witch!”