Prince Eugen gasped, and then swallowed his excitement. ‘Who has been talking? What million?’ His eyes wandered uneasily round the room. ‘Ah!’ he said, pretending to laugh. ‘I see how it is. I have been chattering in my delirium. You mustn’t take any notice of that, Aribert. When one has a fever one’s ideas become grotesque and fanciful.’
‘You never talked in your delirium,’ Aribert replied; ‘at least not about yourself. I knew about this projected loan before I saw you in Ostend.’
‘Who told you?’ demanded Eugen fiercely.
‘Then you admit that you are trying to raise a loan?’
‘I admit nothing. Who told you?’
‘Theodore Racksole, the millionaire. These rich men have no secrets from each other. They form a coterie, closer than any coterie of ours. Eugen, and far more powerful. They talk, and in talking they rule the world, these millionaires. They are the real monarchs.’
‘Curse them!’ said Eugen.
‘Yes, perhaps so. But let me return to your case. Imagine my shame, my disgust, when I found that Racksole could tell me more about your affairs than I knew myself. Happily, he is a good fellow; one can trust him; otherwise I should have been tempted to do something desperate when I discovered that all your private history was in his hands. Eugen, let us come to the point; why do you want that million? Is it actually true that you are so deeply in debt? I have no desire to improve the occasion. I merely ask.’
‘And what if I do owe a million?’ said Prince Eugen with assumed valour.
‘Oh, nothing, my dear Eugen, nothing. Only it is rather a large sum to have scattered in ten years, is it not? How did you manage it?’