“Mademoiselle,” she whispered, coming to me, “Monsieur le Comte Godensky wishes to see you. Shall I say you are not receiving?”
I thought for a moment. Better see him, perhaps. I might learn something. If not—if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please himself, I would soon find out, and could send him away.
I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there. He advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one is sure.
“Well?” I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He held out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when he had come too close.
“Well—I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought you would be glad to see—even me,” he answered, smiling still.
“What news? But bad, of course—or you wouldn’t bring it.”
“You are very cruel. Of course, you’ve seen the evening papers? You know that your English friend is in prison?”
“The same English friend whom you would have liked to see arrested early last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge,” I flung at him. “You look surprised. But you are not surprised, Count Godensky—except, perhaps, that I should guess who had me spied upon at the Élysée Palace Hotel. A disappointment, that affair, wasn’t it? But you haven’t told me your news.”
“It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack to-day.”
“What do you mean?”