I leaped up. Everything within me was seething.
"You are now no longer cruel, but cheap," I said, clearly and
distinctly, accentuating every word.
"You have already written that in your letter," Wanda replied, with
a proud shrug of the shoulders. "A man of brains should never repeat
himself."
"The way you are treating me," I broke out, "what would you call it?"
"I might punish you," she replied ironically, "but I prefer this
time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to
accuse me. Haven't I always been honest with you? Haven't I warned
you more than once? Didn't I love you with all my heart, even
passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was
dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before
me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my
plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the
foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you want now?
"Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the
first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you,
abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and
now you are even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me."
"Yes, I am guilty," I said, "but haven't I suffered because of it?
Let us put an end now to the cruel game."
"That is my wish, too," she replied with a curious deceitful look.
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