"But what are we doing? Wasting time in unavailing discussion, while that innocent girl may be enduring God only knows what."
I sprang to my feet also, as if equally distressed. We had occupied hours of valuable time where minutes would have sufficed had we really been in earnest; and the hour when we were due at the ball was fast approaching.
"But what of to-night's proceedings?" asked von Nauheim.
"We must go forward as if nothing of this had happened. I, for one, am all against giving up until we are really beaten. I will cause inquiry to be made at once in a hundred different quarters by our friends and agents, and maybe we shall yet find the countess in time for to-night's work. Is not that best?"
I pretended to demur.
"I fear it is useless. Cannot everything be put off until my cousin is found?"
"No, no, far safer to go on," answered the baron, a little too eagerly. "Even if we cannot present the countess as the future Queen to the people to-night, we are almost sure to be able to find her before to-morrow; and we must make the best excuse possible for her absence to-night."
I raised more objections, and thus wasted more time, only giving way in the end with apparent reluctance. Nearly another hour passed in a fresh heated discussion, and when we separated it was ten o'clock.
I calculated that von Nauheim might safely be left now. I had kept him without food for five hours, and I knew he would barely have time to rush home, put on his fancy-dress costume, snatch a hasty meal, and get to the ball at the appointed time for the meeting of the chief actors in the night's business.
I was soon to have evidence, however, that if I had been active in my preparations my antagonists had also been busy, and had laid deliberate plans for my overthrow at that very moment.