"Come in!"
I enter. She is standing in the center of the room, dressed in a gown
of white satin which floods down her body like light. Over it she
wears a scarlet _kazabaika_, richly edged with ermine. Upon her
powdered, snowy hair is a little diadem of diamonds. She stands with
her arms folded across her breast, and with her brows contracted.
"Wanda!" I run toward her, and am about to throw my arm about her to
kiss her. She retreats a step, measuring me from top to bottom.
"Slave!"
"Mistress!" I kneel down, and kiss the hem of her garment.
"That is as it should be."
"Oh, how beautiful you are."
"Do I please you?" She stepped before the mirror, and looked at
herself with proud satisfaction.
"I shall become mad!"
Her lower lip twitched derisively, and she looked at me mockingly
from behind half-closed lids.
"Give me the whip."
I looked about the room.
"No," she exclaimed, "stay as you are, kneeling." She went over to
the fire-place, took the whip from the mantle-piece, and, watching
me with a smile, let it hiss through the air; then she slowly rolled
up the sleeve of her fur-jacket.
"Marvellous woman!" I exclaimed.
"Silence, slave!" She suddenly scowled, looked savage, and struck me
with the whip. A moment later she threw her arm tenderly about me,
and pityingly bent down to me. "Did I hurt you?" she asked, half-
shyly, half-timidly.
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