Believe me, madam, though your master I am not less your
slave," he mocked.
"You are neither my master nor my slave, but a thing I detest,"
she said, in a low voice that carried extraordinary intensity.
"And obey," he added, suavely. "Come, madam, to horse, for our
honeymoon."
"I tell you I shall not go."
"Then, in faith, we'll re-enact a modern edition of 'The Taming
of the Shrew.' Y'u'll find me, sweet, as apt at the part as old
Petruchio." He paced complacently up the room and back, and
quoted glibly:
"And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him, speak; 'tis charity to show."
"Would you take me against my will?"
"Y'u have said it. What's your will to me? What I want I take.
And I sure want my beautiful shrew." His half-shuttered eyes
gloated on her as he rattled off a couple more lines from the
play he had mentioned.
"Kate, like the hazel-twig,
Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels."
She let a swift glance travel anxiously to the door. "You are in
a very poetical mood to-day."
"As befits a bridegroom, my own." He stepped lightly to the
window and tapped twice on the pane.
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