"A diplomatic career is really full of interest, ma chère," observed Baron von Hollbrandt to his fair companion. "It would be difficult to see anything so dramatic in Berlin!"
His friend's pretty blue eyes lit up with an eager intensity as she took the cigarette from between her lips. Her voice was full of joyful excitement:
"Yes, it's to death between that big Mistitch and the Prince—the blood of one or both of them, you'll see!"
"You are too deliciously Kravonian," said Hollbrandt, with a laugh.
Outside, big Mistitch had crossed the canal and come to the corner where the Street of the Fountain opens on to St. Michael's Square. "What say you to a call at the Hôtel de Paris, lads?" he said.
"Hist!" Sterkoff whispered. "Do you hear that step—coming up the street there?"
The illuminations burned still in the Square and sent a path of light down the narrow street. The three stopped and turned their heads. Sterkoff pointed. Mistitch looked—and smacked his ponderous thigh.