“You make my position very invidious, mademoiselle,” said Boreski, looking profoundly uneasy.
“M. Denver, you have some influence with Mademoiselle Helga,” said the Duchess to me. “Use it now, I beg of you, to urge her to give back these papers to me.”
“M. Denver has no influence with me,” declared Helga. “The papers were obtained at my suggestion and for my own purpose, and no power in Russia shall drag them from me until that purpose is accomplished.”
“But I have pledged my word,” cried the Duchess with tears in her eyes.
“And have done your best to keep it. But the papers must remain with me. Nothing can change my resolve.”
We heard the carriage at the door then.
“I think that in honour you should give them up,” said Boreski.
Helga looked at him very angrily.
“I bid you good-night, M. Boreski,” she said stiffly.
But the Duchess, having tried ineffectually entreaties and tears, had a last shaft in the quiver. She laughed angrily.