“You are wasting your time and mine,” returned Obenreizer. “If my niece is not rendered up to my authority within one week from this day, I invoke the law. If you resist the law, I take her by force.”
He rose to his feet as he said the last word. Maître Voigt looked round again towards the brown door which led into the inner room.
“Have some pity on the poor girl,” pleaded Bintrey. “Remember how lately she lost her lover by a dreadful death! Will nothing move you?”
“Nothing.”
Bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at Maître Voigt. Maître Voigt’s hand, resting on the table, began to tremble. Maître Voigt’s eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible fascination, on the brown door. Obenreizer, suspiciously observing him, looked that way too.
“There is somebody listening in there!” he exclaimed, with a sharp backward glance at Bintrey.
“There are two people listening,” answered Bintrey.
“Who are they?”
“You shall see.”
With this answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next words—the two common words which are on everybody’s lips, at every hour of the day: “Come in!”