"You have been playing for a big stake, and I have shown you it is out of your reach. This girl is nothing to you—unless she has succeeded in winning your valuable heart. But you are no fool to waste your strength in chasing the unattainable. Give her up. Name your own terms in money and position. Enlist on my side, and whatever you ask you shall have."
"I am not for sale," I answered indignantly.
"Then you will be a fool, that's all. You have said enough to me here, coupled with the fact that you are what I know you to be, to warrant me in clapping you into a jail straightaway, and I will do it, believe me, if you force me."
"If you like to sign the death warrant of the Duke Marx in that way, you can. I have not come here to you without knowing you, and preparing for eventualities. Your part in all this is known to others besides me, and I leave you to judge where you, or those joined with you, would benefit if there were no Ostenburg heir to take the throne. Berlin would have to bring back the madman, or put the Countess Minna on the throne, or some stranger; and, in either event, your power and influence would be gone. But you know all this well enough. Clap me into jail as you say, or have my head cut off if you like it better, but how would it help you? No, baron, you will have to try something else. The cards I hold are too strong for you."
I flung the words at him with a reckless air, and he knew the truth of them. After a moment he replied:
"You mean you will keep to your mad plan of marrying the Countess Minna?"
"I have said nothing of the sort. My object is merely to free her from a position of danger from those against whom alone she is powerless to fight. It has been part of your infernal scheme to ruin her, to take her life, or to shut her up somewhere for the rest of it, because she interferes in some way with your plans."
"And you wished to put her on the throne in spite of us?"
"She has no more wish to become Queen of Bavaria than to become one of your kitchen wenches. You have known this throughout. She has always been against it, and it was only for the purposes of your own double treachery that you would not recognize it openly. Give her the chance and she would renounce all claim to the throne at this very instant. But you would give her no opportunity. You used her to mask your own hidden scheme, and you have always harbored a design against her safety. And now your own precious scheme has failed, as it deserved to. She has been your victim throughout, just as that infamous von Nauheim has been your abominable instrument. Where is that scoundrel now?" I cried.
He paid no heed to the question, but was rapt in thought for some seconds, and, seeing yet another development opening, I resumed my seat.