"Oh, don't leave me, Herr Bastable. Help me," she cried, catching and holding my hand and backing her words with appealing glances.
"Give up the Prince--you do not really care for him; write a renunciation grounding it on the fact that you do not wish to go counter to the Kaiser's wish and will do anything rather than injure the Prince's future; and let me have the document to get it to the Emperor."
"Help me to write it. You write so cleverly."
"No. Don't have it machine made. Let yourself go in writing it. You have just heard of His Majesty's opposition, your heart is breaking, and so on."
"It is," she said, with a very piteous look.
"It will--if you don't get your chance at the concert. Think of all that means to you, and then persuade yourself that your emotion is for the loss of the Prince and not the sacrifice of your future."
It was rather brutal, but she only laughed. "I will try," she agreed; and saying that I would see her again on the following day, I left her to hurry to von Felsen.
I was convinced that she cared no more for the Prince than I did, and that she had merely kept him tied to her apron-strings as a possible means of advancing her interests. To me she stood for a type of calculating, callous selfishness; and yet to the Prince she appeared as a veritable queen among women. But then I was not in love with her, and he was; and he would certainly curse me heartily for the advice I had given her.
When I reached von Felsen's house a somewhat curious thing occurred. I was asked to wait a while; and as I stood thinking about the coming interview and staring out of the window into the now gloomy street, the electric lights of the room were switched on suddenly. I turned on the instant to find von Felsen in the act of closing the door which the servant must have left open.
He was not quite quick enough; for I caught sight of a man crossing the hall rapidly, and recognized him as a fellow named Dragen, one of the worst characters in Berlin, the bully and worse of a low gambling hell. I had come across him in my old newspaper work in connexion with a very unsavoury case.