"Thank you—for less than nothing. I am to be put to the trouble of trying to find her in order that you may once more have the pleasure of keeping her away from me. I think you had better go and do your own spy-work."
We were each deceiving the other, though I had the clew to his attitude, and we were both wasting time in quarrelling which, had we been in earnest, we should have been only too eager to spend in the search. My motive was of course so to occupy his time that he would have no time to go to the girl; and his object was to keep me as long as possible from making inquiries to trace Minna. I let him appear to have his way, and we spent over an hour wrangling, disputing, and recriminating.
At last he exclaimed that it was no use for us to quarrel; we had better go and tell the news to Baron Heckscher and consult him. So long as we remained together, I did not care where we went nor whom we saw; and after he had occupied a very long time in changing his dress again—time wasted purposely, of course—we drove to the baron's house.
He was a far better actor than von Nauheim, and his consternation and anger were excellently assumed.
"It is ruin to everything. How could you allow it, Prince? We have placed the most precious charge in your hands, have left to you what it was your right, as the only male relative of the countess, to claim, the most delicate work of protecting the person of our future Queen; and now this has happened. I am astounded, dismayed, completely baffled. I had not the faintest idea that even a soul among the whole Ostenburg circle had a thought of what we were planning; and now, just when everything is all but ripe, this calamity has fallen like a thunderbolt."
And he continued to lament in this fashion at great length and with most voluble energy—an exceedingly artistic waste of much further time.
"Heaven knows what may happen next," he cried later on. "If these men get wind who has been in the plot, the whole city will be red with murder. For God's sake, Prince, be careful. You must be of course associated with the unfortunate countess as her relative and as the late Prince's successor, and I warn you most solemnly to be on your guard, most careful and vigilant."
It was a clever stroke, and I understood it well enough. I was to be attacked, but my suspicions of any complicity on his part were to be silenced by this warning.
"My life is of no account; I will not live, indeed, if, through my lack of care, anything happens to my cousin. Death would be my only solace!" I exclaimed passionately.
And this was made the text for a further and longer discussion, until at last Baron Heckscher cried out, as if in sudden dismay: