“This matter must be set straight, Miss Drakona.” My tone was as firm to her as it had been to him; and this served to complete his discomfiture.
“Now, Colonel Bremenhof, I am waiting.”
He sat down and was as troubled and fidgetty as a schoolboy waiting for a birching. His eyes were everywhere in the room, his lips moved nervously, and his fingers played with his beard. But he said nothing.
“I will help you to start. You gave me your word last night that Madame Drakona should be released to-day; that you would place the evidence against her in my hands at your house to-night; and that all charges against this lady should be withdrawn. Is that true?”
“Yes; that is what I have explained,” he muttered.
“The express object, as I told you plainly, was that Miss Drakona should be a perfectly free agent to marry my friend Count Ladislas Tuleski or not as she chose.”
“I have said that too, in effect.”
“In effect!” cried Volna contemptuously.
“The one condition you imposed was that I should leave the country, and to that I agreed.”
“That is only your way of putting it,” he said, beginning to gather courage as the minutes passed.