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speechless.
"
Oh!" she cried. "How clever you are! You are come. You found out that I
was obliged to leave London. You followed me. That was right. Your being
here proves you to be a wonder."
The simultaneous return of self-possession acts like a flash of
lightning. Gwynplaine, indistinctly warned by a vague, rude, but honest
misgiving, drew back, but the pink nails clung to his shoulders and
restrained him. Some inexorable power proclaimed its sway over him. He
himself, a wild beast, was caged in a wild beast's den. She continued,
"Anne, the fool--you know whom I mean--the queen--ordered me to Windsor
without giving any reason. When I arrived she was closeted with her
idiot of a Chancellor. But how did you contrive to obtain access to me?
That's what I call being a man. Obstacles, indeed! there are no such
things. You come at a call. You found things out. My name, the Duchess
Josiana, you knew, I fancy. Who was it brought you in? No doubt it was
the page. Oh, he is clever! I will give him a hundred guineas. Which way
did you get in? Tell me! No, don't tell me; I don't want to know.
Explanations diminish interest. I prefer the marvellous, and you are
hideous enough to be wonderful. You have fallen from the highest
heavens, or you have risen from the depths of hell through the devil's
trap-door. Nothing can be more natural. The ceiling opened or the floor
yawned. A descent in a cloud, or an ascent in a mass of fire and
brimstone, that is how you have travelled. You have a right to enter
like the gods. Agreed; you are my lover."
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