“That is a lie.”
There was nothing abusive in the remark. It was simply a statement of fact, coldly, dispassionately pronounced by the remarkable pencil dressed in black who spired beside him. Lieutenant Valcour was shocked into a nervous laugh. He discarded his mask of indifference and stared at Mrs. Siddons openly and with complete interest. Not planets, her eyes—rather were they banked fires beneath whose ash hot coals smouldered deeply.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, “but that your forbears came from Salem.”
A look of interest stirred sleepily in the coals.
“Why so, sir?”
“Because there’s a look of witch-burning in your eyes.”
Mrs. Siddons gestured a slow negation.
“I would never abrogate the rights of God.”
“But you would approve, Mrs. Siddons.”
“I would rejoice , sir, in the crushing out of any evil or”—her tone became implacably stern—“of any evil thing.”
“Or even of a human being?”
Her look did not waver.
“Yes, Lieutenant—or even of a human being.” She went on steadily and unemotionally. Her words were fragments of stone chipped from some elemental quarry of granitelike conviction and harsh purpose. “That is why you find me dry-eyed, sir, in spite of the tragedy which has been visited upon this house.”