Mathilde sat up. Her voice acquired a vicious dullness.
"You will not interfere with me, von Stinnes."
"I, Matty?" The Baron laughed and resumed his mocha. "I am heart and soul with Levine. If Dorn cannot go I will have to go alone. It is necessary I be in Munich when the Soviets are called out."
"You will not interfere with me, von Stinnes," the girl repeated, "or I will kill you."
"You have my permission, Fräulein. The logical time for my death is long past."
Mathilde's sharp young face had grown alive with excitement. She sat with her eyes unwaveringly upon the Baron as if her thought were groping desperately beneath the smiling weariness of the man.
"Mr. Dorn," she spoke, "von Stinnes is a traitor."
Dorn smiled.
"If one million marks will cause a revolution, I'll take them to Munich myself," he answered. "I'm sick of Berlin. I need a revolution to divert me."
"I fear I am in the way," von Stinnes interrupted. He arose with formality. "Mathilde would like to unburden herself to you, Dorn. I am, she will inform you, a secret agent of Colonel Nickolai, and Colonel Nickolai is the head of the anti-bolshevist pro-royalist propaganda in Prussia." He paused and smiled. "I will meet you in the lobby when you come down."