“And the Orkney’s gold?” she questioned.
“The Orkney’s gold? I want it! Yes, but only to aid me to aid you. If I recover it, I win my imperial master’s favor and I pave the way for your recognition. On the other hand, failure will lose me that confidence, and make it harder for me to triumph over Count Strogoff and help you. Except for this, the gold counts for comparatively little. Your estates are worth five times as much.”
“I see.”
“Now, Princess, I will make you a proposal. You are a woman, clever, young, and beautiful, but weak; I am a bachelor, not very young, but not yet very old, and I am powerful, and power is what you need. Madame la Princesse, will you do me the honor to become my wife?”
Florence’s breath was taken away with a vengeance. That she, the variety actress of a month before, should be receiving a proposal of marriage from the chief of the Russian secret police was past belief. “Gee!” she muttered. “What’s coming next? If the pipe don’t go out and I don’t wake up, the first thing I know the Czarski’ll be asking me to share his bomb-proof cottage with him.”
Scarcely she heard the Baron’s following words:
“I know that it is presumption for me to address you, Princess,” he was saying. “My family, though noble, is by no means on a par with yours. Still, I assure you that your union with me cannot be termed a mesalliance. The position I have won makes it possible for me to mate with any one outside of the blood royal. Will you not accept me, Princess?”
The daze was passing away, and Florence was regaining command of herself. “Gee!” she muttered desperately. “Gee! He’s a nice old fellow, any way, and I don’t know but what—oh, gee!” she exploded. “I’m afraid! I’m afraid!” She looked up at the Baron. “I must think! I must think!” she cried.
“Assuredly, Princess! Think all you like. And remember that, though I do not talk of sentiment, for you might think me deceitful, yet I feel it, Princess. I am not so old that I cannot admire and love—yes, love, Princess. But I will leave that till later. Just now remember that I can give you everything, and that I offer myself as a guarantee of my truth. Can I say more?”
“No! No!” Florence had found her tongue at last. “No! No! You can’t say more. And I will accept if I can. I will, honest. But I must think. I must talk to my friends on the Sea Spume.”