Her voice had become eager and vibrant. Dorn smiled ruefully, the faint mist of a sigh in his thought. The girl had worked adroitly. Of course, he was someone to carry the money to the Munich radicals.
"It is just an ordinary-looking package. The station will be under a guard and all the roads coming in, too. They are expecting the revolution and ..." She paused and grew red. Dorn's eyes were looking at her banteringly. "You are thinking I have tricked you," she cried, "and that it was only to use you as a ... as a carrier that I ... Well, perhaps it is true. I do not know myself. I told you you could have me. Yes, I give myself to you now ... now.... Do you hear?"
She laughed with bitterness.
"I have never given myself before. I would rather you smiled and were kind. But if you wish to laugh ... and call it a bargain ... it does not matter."
She had stepped away from him and stood with kindled eyes, waiting.
"One can be chivalrous in the absence of all other impulses, Mathilde. And all other impulses have expired in me. So I will take the package. We will start to-morrow early. And as for the rest ... I will spare you the tedium of martyrdom."
He moved toward the door. "Come, we'll go downstairs. Von Stinnes will be getting impatient."
Mathilde came to him swiftly. He caught a glimpse of her face lighted, and her arms circled his neck. She was looking at him without words. A coldness dropped into his heart. There had been three of them before—he, Mathilde, and a phantom. Now there were only Mathilde and himself.
"She was not tricking," he thought, and felt pleased. "At least not consciously."
Her arms fell from him and she stared frightenedly.