Confide in me; who knows but I may help you.'
'Scoff as you will,' was his answer. 'It is your privilege. But in
truth, lady, I have little time to waste.'
'And in truth, lord, your courtesy has suffered since you began to
peck and pine for this little Hun.'
'Hun?'
'Oh, I cry pardon! Goth, I should have said. Indeed, there are
degrees of barbarism--but, as you will. I say again, I care not
the clipping of my smallest nail.' She held her hand towards him;
very white it was, and soft and shapely, but burdened with too many
rings. 'Tell me all, and I will help you. Tell me nothing, and have
nothing for your pains.'
'Help me?' exclaimed Basil, in scornful impatience. 'Am I such a
fool as to think you would wish to help me, even if you could?'
'Listen to me, Basil.' She spoke in a deep note which was half
friendliness, half menace. 'I am not wont to have my requests
refused. Leave me thus, and you have one more enemy--an enemy more
to be dreaded than all the rest. Already I know something of this
story, and I can know the whole of it as soon as I will; but what I
want now is to hear the truth about your part in it.
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