Maud kept by herself. She felt miserable, and as is often the case,
realized that the success of her treachery, thus far, which, in her
anticipation, had promised so much, had but still more deeply shadowed
her heart. The English officer looked upon her with mingled feelings of
admiration for her strange beauty, with contempt for her treachery, and
with a thought that she might be made perhaps the subject of his
pleasure by a little management by-and-by. It was natural for a heart so
vile as his to couple every circumstance and connection in some such
selfish spirit with himself; it was like him.
"Maud," he said to her, one day.
"Well," she answered, lifting her handsome face from her hands, where
she often hid it.
"You have lost one lover?"
The girl only answered by a flashing glance of contempt.
"How would you like another?"
"Who?" she said, sternly.
"Me!" answered Captain Bramble.
"You!" she said, contemptuously, and with so much expression as to end
the conversation.
No, he had not rightly understood the Quadroon; it was not wounded
pride, that sentiment so easily healed when once bruised in the heart of
a woman; it was not that which moved the laughter of the Spanish
slaver--it was either love, or something very like it, turned to actual
hate, and the native power of her bosom for revenge seemed to be now the
food upon which she sustained life itself.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133