the first--you see? less instinctive, more rational. The first disobeyed
by commission: I shall disobey by omission: only his disobedience was a
sin, mine is a heroism. I have not been a particularly ideal sort of
beast so far, you know: but in me, Adam Jeffson--I swear it--the human
race shall at last attain a true nobility, the nobility of
self-extinction. I shall turn out trumps: I shall prove myself stronger
than Tendency, World-Genius, Providence, Currents of Fate, White Power,
Black Power, or whatever is the name for it. No more Clodaghs, Lucrezia
Borgias, Semiramises, Pompadours, Irish Landlords, Hundred-Years'
Wars--you see?'

She kept her left eye obliquely cocked like a little fool, wondering, no
doubt, what I was saying.

'And talking of Clodagh,' I went on, 'I shall call you that henceforth,
to keep me reminded. So that is your name--not Eve--but Clodagh, who was
a Poisoner, you see? She poisoned a poor man who trusted her: and that
is your name now--not Eve, but Clodagh--to remind me, you most dangerous
little speckled viper! And in order that I may no more see your foolish
little pretty face, I decree that, for the future, you wear a _yashmak_
to cover up your lips, which, I can see, were meant to be seductive,
though dirty; and you can leave the blue eyes, and the little
white-skinned freckled nose uncovered, if you like, they being
commonplace enough. Meantime, if you care to see how to draw a palace--I
will show you.'

Before I stretched my hand, she was presenting the board--so that she
had guessed something of my meaning! But some hard tone in my talk had
wounded her, for she presented it looking very glum, her under-lip
pushing a little obliquely out, very pathetically, I must say, as always