Iago, of a Richard the Third and a Lady Macbeth, and then overlaid the sinister note with something else, an impression of lofty abandon, of immolation, as if, in calculating her life, she had laid upon the altar all there was of herself—everything—in order to attain some supreme end.
John, staring at her, got a sudden intuitive gleam of a woman who was not only ambitious as he was ambitious, but wildly, dangerously ambitious, with a danger that was not to herself alone, but to any who stood near enough to be trampled on as she climbed upward,—dangerous to one who might love her, for example!
He got the thought clearly in his mind, too; yet only for a moment, and to be crowded out immediately by another thought, or indeed, a succession of thoughts, all induced by the picture she made amid her cushions.
How beautiful she was! How very, very beautiful! And how magnetic! How she had made the blood run in his veins when she lay upon his breast as Lygia, their hearts beating, their souls stirring together!
And now she had resigned herself for an hour to his company, had given him her confidence, was awaiting, as it seemed, his pleasure,—while the color came and went in her cheeks, while subdued lights danced in the dark pools beneath lazily drooping lashes, and the filmy gown which sheathed her body stirred with every breath as if a part of her very self.
Lying there like this, her presence ceased soon to induce thoughts and began to stimulate impulses. Hampstead longed to reach out and lay a hand upon her. She was so alluring and so, so helpless.
For weeks now he had allowed himself to dream of her as possibly the woman of his destiny,—not admitting it, but still dreaming it. Here in his presence, she suddenly ceased to be even a woman. She was just Woman;
