Something in his accent and tone roused my suspicions, and I watched him very closely as he added:
"And further, that the Duke Marx shall return to Munich as soon as she is at liberty."
"The Countess Minna's fortune must be secured to her," I said, speaking more to gain time to think than with any real care for the money.
"You are cautious for a young man in love," he sneered; "but you need have no fear on that score. You will not lose that."
I saw his object then pretty fully. He perceived that a marriage with an actor and adventurer such as he deemed me would help his plans for the Ostenburgs at least as much as a marriage with von Nauheim. Everything could go forward with his scheme. Minna would be out of the way even as he had planned, and she could still be used as a stalking-horse to cover his great object, and thus the Duke Marx would be called to the throne apparently without having plotted for it.
There was one obstacle that I saw—von Nauheim.
"What of von Nauheim?" I asked. "Where is he?"
The answer was a wave of the hand, as though such a consideration were beneath serious notice.
"Is he with the Countess Minna now?" I asked, my face growing dark.
"He met with some sort of accident last night, it seems," he said, with a shrewd glance at me. "But for that he might have been with her, by the desire of Baroness Gratz. But as it is——" he added, with another hand wave.