At last, however, the defiance assumed sway; the consideration was forgotten. “Kyt says all men love thee,” she observed, critically; “now, wherefore, I wonder?” and, as Eleanor turned to her in silent surprise, “Wherefore do they love thee? Thou hast no merry jest of good comradeship, nor yet those subtler, intoxicating ways to madden a man and enslave him. See! hast ever looked at men like this?” She tossed her curls back and smiled roguishly, with a full consciousness of her beauty. “Or this?” She leaned forward, arms outstretched languorously, lips slightly parted, lashes drooping, as though to veil and soften the light of her eyes. And the eyes were now shimmering, alluring, full of a mystic, though physical, enthralment.
Eleanor drew back, with a tremor of repulsion.
“Oh, you recoil,” said Gyll, laughing, with a somewhat hollow mirth; then, mockingly: “And why should you hold aloof? ’Tis better to be a woman than a statue—and not so wonderful a statue, after all. Believe me, ’tis the mere poetry of the thing entrances addle-pated Kyt—the mere delusion. ’Tis the rhythm wherewith he describes you to himself. He writes of you in plays, he calls you so-and-so in this and that. ’Tis all fancy. There is no real _you_. Indeed, I doubt if you are more than a dream to any man. Now, _I_ am an actual, vivid desire.” And so she prattled on until, at last pausing, as the firelight grew dimmer, she stretched out her arms and buried her head in them on Frazer’s cloak.
Eleanor’s eyes, cast down on the graceful figure, grew more tender. “I am so sorry for you,” she said, “poor—” but Gyll had sprung to her feet.
“Sorry? Sorry?” she demanded, with railing sarcasm. “Your sympathies, Mistress Dare, would better be directed toward yourself. Sorry! Oh—and _poor_! Hast never seen my wardrobe—the rich broidered stomacher, the rare silk and sarsanet, the fine linen of my smocks, the gold-fringed roundels, drawn out with cypress, the silken simar lined with furs? Methinks the governor’s lofty daughter herself has no such raiment. And then the ear-rings of silver and pearl, the necklaces—oh, _poor_! An this be poverty, I rest content to be a pauper. Poor, indeed! Poor!” and she laughed as at an absurdity.