“Because I prefer it, Princess.”
“I see no reason. The Count is fully aware of all our matters, is one of my most trusted advisers and friends, and his welfare and safety touch me very closely. The matter can be settled here and now.”
“You are presuming much——”
“I do not understand the word presumption in such a case, and from you, General Kolfort,” cried Christina, proudly, “and I will not hear it.”
“If your Highness has no further need of my services, nor of the influence of my Government in your affairs, you have but to say so,” he said in a tone of calculated menace. But he didn’t frighten my brave and staunch Princess, and she answered him in a tone of queenly dignity.
“If your services can go no higher than the cold-blooded murder of my friends and adherents, I shall be glad for your Government to release you from a position that you fill in a manner so unworthy of Russia and so bitterly hateful to myself.”
He had drawn a blank in the attempt to intimidate her, and was quick to see and wily enough to abandon it.
“Yet I have not been unmindful hitherto of your interests,” he answered.
“Hitherto they do not appear to have clashed with your own plans and private animosities,” she flashed, with a sting that festered at once.
“This is rather a matter of your private feelings than mine,” he said, with a significant glance in my direction.