"Allow?" she echoed, shrilly.
"I generally use the words I mean. I said 'allow'—and I mean no other word. I shall not allow it."
She let her ill temper have the reins for a minute, and broke out into a storm of invective, using more than one little oath to point her phrases. I waited patiently until her breath and words failed her.
"I am glad you have broken out like that. There's more relief in it than tears. Now I will tell you what I mean to do—and to do to-day. I have had inquiries made in Paris for M. Constans, and a wire from me will bring him here in search of you. You know what that means;" I added, very deliberately, as I saw her colour change. I guessed there was ground for the bluff that I knew much more than my words expressed.
"I don't believe you," she managed to stammer out—her voice quite changed with fear.
"Your opinion does not touch me. In your heart you know I never lie, Madame—and for once you may trust your heart. If you force me, that telegram will go to-day. Nor is that all. I will go to Duke Ladislas and tell him the story of the lost jewels, and who instigated the theft and received the stolen property."
"They have been given back; besides, will he prosecute his own son?"
"The theft shall be published in every paper, and with it the story of how Count Karl has been ruined by opium drugging. By whom, Madame—by the secret agent of the French Government, the ex-spy of the Paris police—Madame Constans? You can judge how Austrian people will read that story."
She had no longer any fight left in her. I spoke without a note of passion in my voice; and every word told. She sat staring at me, white and helpless and beaten.
"More than that and worse than that——"