The wretched victim of his own unbridled sensuality shook with inarticulate rage. Choking and coughing he writhed in his chair--his emaciated limbs twisted grotesquely; his sallow face bathed in perspiration his claw-like hands opening and closing; his bloodless lips curled back from his yellow teeth, in a horrid grin of impotent fury. And all the while she lay watching him with that pitiless, mocking, smile. It was as though the malevolent devil and the tortured soul had suddenly changed places.
When the man could speak, he reviled her, in his rasping whisper, with curses that it seemed must blister his tongue. She received his effort with jeering laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now and then, among the cushions, with an air of purely physical enjoyment that, to the other, was maddening.
"If this is all you came for,"--she said, easily,--"might have spared yourself the effort--don't you think?"
Controlling himself, in a measure, he returned, "I came to tell you that your intimacy with that damned painter must stop."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. One hand, hidden in the cushions, clenched until her rings hurt. "Just what do you mean by my intimacy?" she asked evenly.
"You know what I mean," he replied coarsely. "I mean what intimacy with a man always means to a woman like you."
"The only meaning that a creature of your foul mind can understand," she retorted smoothly. "If it were worth while to tell you the truth, I would say that my conduct when alone with Mr. King has been as proper as--as when I am alone with you."
The taunt maddened him. Interrupted by spells of coughing--choking, gasping, fighting for breath, his eyes blazing with hatred and lust, mingling his words with oaths and curses--he raged at her. "And do you think--that, because I am so nearly dead,--I do not resent what--I saw, to-day? Do you think--I am so far gone that I cannot--understand--your interest in this man,--after--watching you, together, all--the afternoon? Has there been any one--in his studio, except you two, when--he was painting you in that dress--which you--designed for his benefit? Oh, no, indeed,--you and your--genius could not be interrupted,--for the sake--of his art. His art! Great God!--was there ever such a damnable farce--since hell was invented? Art!--you--_you_--_you_!--" crazed with jealous fury, he pointed at her with his yellow, shaking, skeleton fingers; and struggled to raise his voice above that rasping whisper until the cords of his scrawny neck stood out and his face was distorted with the strain of his effort--"_You!_ painted as a--modest Quaker Maid,--with all the charm of innocence,--virtue, and religious piety in your face. _You!_ And that picture will be exhibited--and written about--as a work of _art!_ You'll pull all the strings,--and use all your influence,--and the thing--will be received as a--masterpiece."