His talons having failed to grip me now gripped one another, and with considerable tension too. His right hand fastened like a vice on his left wrist.
"I did not threaten you, I only warned you. What is it you want?"
"In the first place, fair play—and it is not playing fairly for Duke Ladislas to come to me in the disguise of a mutual friend."
"You know me, then?"
"As well as you know me. Inadvertently, when you entered, you called me by my name—von Dreschler. You know, also, one of the objects I seek—justice for my father's name. That it be cleared from the shame and disgrace foully and treacherously put upon it in the interest of you and your family—the responsibility for a deed of blood of which he was innocent, but which you, or those promoting your interests, instigated, planned, and carried out."
"'Fore God, you speak daringly, madam."
"I speak the truth, my Lord, just as I demand to have justice done. Not demand only, but command it shall be done—for the power to command has been put into my hands by the perfidy and wickedness of your son, Count Gustav."
I looked for an outburst from him in response; but none came. He sat silent, the right talon still gripping the left as though he wished it were my throat.
"I do not know with what motive you came to me," I said after a pause; "unless it was to try and frighten me into silence. But I will deal more frankly with you than you with me. If you have come to offer me less than justice to my father's memory, we are only wasting time; and the interview, painful to both, may as well end right now."
"I offer you that and no less," he answered, and he loosed his wrist to wave his hand as if with a gesture of compliance.