"It is entirely in your hands to shorten the hard period of my trial, to cease tormenting me--" I pleaded.

"Do you imagine that this compulsion isn't a torment for me, too,"

Wanda interjected.

"Then end it," I exclaimed, embracing her, "be my wife."

"_Never, Severin_," she said gently, but with great firmness.

"What do you mean?"

I was frightened in my innermost soul.

"_You are not the man for me._"

I looked at her, and slowly withdrew my arm which was still about her waist; then I left the room, and she--she did not call me back.

A sleepless night; I made countless decisions, only to toss them aside again. In the morning I wrote her a letter in which I declared our relationship dissolved. My hand trembled when I put on the seal, and I burned my fingers.

As I went upstairs to hand it to the maid, my knees threatened to give way.

The door opened, and Wanda thrust forth her head full of curling-papers.

"I haven't had my hair dressed yet," she said, smiling. "What have you there?"

"A letter--"

"For me?"

I nodded.

"Ah, you want to break with me," she exclaimed, mockingly.

"Didn't you tell me yesterday that I wasn't the man for you?"

_"I repeat it now!"_

"Very well, then." My whole body was trembling, my voice failed me, and I handed her the letter.

"Keep it," she said, measuring me coldly. "You forget that is no longer a question as to whether you satisfy me as a man; as a _slave_ you will doubtless do well enough."

"Madame!" I exclaimed, aghast.

"That is what you will call me in the future," replied Wanda, throwing back her head with a movement of unutterable contempt. "Put your affairs in order within the next twenty-four hours. The day after to-morrow I shall start for Italy, and you will accompany me as my servant."

"Wanda--"

"I forbid any sort of familiarity," she said, cutting my words short, "likewise you are not to come in unless I call or ring for you, and you are not to speak to me until you are spoken to. From now on your name is no longer Severin, but _Gregor_."

I trembled with rage, and yet, unfortunately, I cannot deny it, I also felt a strange pleasure and stimulation.

"But, madame, you know my circ.u.mstances," I began in my confusion.

"I am dependent on my father, and I doubt whether he will give me the large sum of money needed for this journey--"

"That means you have no money, Gregor," said Wanda, delightedly, "so much the better, you are then entirely dependent on me, and in fact my slave."

"You don't consider," I tried to object, "that as man of honor it is impossible for me--"

"I have indeed considered it," she replied almost with a tone of command. "As a man of honor you must keep your oath and redeem your promise to follow me as slave whithersoever I demand and to obey whatever I command. Now leave me, Gregor!"

I turned toward the door.

"Not yet--you may first kiss my hand." She held it out to me with a certain proud indifference, and I the dilettante, the donkey, the miserable slave pressed it with intense tenderness against my lips which were dry and hot with excitement.

There was another gracious nod of the head.

Then I was dismissed.

Though it was late in the evening my light was still lit, and a fire was burning in the large green stove. There were still many things among my letters and doc.u.ments to be put in order. Autumn, as is usually the case with us, had fallen with all its power.

Suddenly she knocked at my window with the handle of her whip.

I opened and saw her standing outside in her ermine-lined jacket and in a high round Cossack cap of ermine of the kind which the great Catherine favored.

"Are you ready, Gregor?" she asked darkly.

"Not yet, mistress," I replied.

"I like that word," she said then, "you are always to call me mistress, do you understand? We leave here to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. As far as the district capital you will be my companion and friend, but from the moment that we enter the railway-coach you are my slave, my servant. Now close the window, and open the door."

After I had done as she had demanded, and after she had entered, she asked, contracting her brows ironically, "well, how do you like me."

"Wanda, you--"

"Who gave you permission?" She gave me a blow with the whip.

"You are very beautiful, mistress."

Wanda smiled and sat down in the arm-chair. "Kneel down--here beside my chair."

I obeyed.

"Kiss my hand."

I seized her small cold hand and kissed it.