“And that?” he asked.
“The danger,” she said, slowly. “I do not want to lose you, Peter. There are times when I am afraid.”
De Grost flicked the ash from his cigarette.
“The days are passing,” he remarked, “when men point revolvers at one another, and hire assassins to gain their ends. Now, it is more a battle of wits. We play chess on the board of Life still, but we play with ivory pieces instead of steel and poison. Our brains direct and not our muscles.”
She sighed.
“It is only the one man of whom I am afraid. You have outwitted him so often and he does not forgive.”
De Grost smiled. It was an immense compliment—this.
“Bernadine,” he murmured, softly, “otherwise, our friend the Count von Hern.”
“Bernadine!” she repeated. “All that you say is true, but when one fails with modern weapons, one changes the form of attack. Bernadine at heart is a savage.”
“The hate of such a man,” De Grost remarked complacently, “is worth having. He has had his own way over here for years. He seems to have found the knack of living in a maze of intrigue and remaining untouchable. There were a dozen things before I came upon the scene which ought to have ruined him. Yet there never appeared to be anything to take hold of. Even the Criminal Department once thought they had a chance. I remember John Dory telling me in disgust that Bernadine was like one of those marvelous criminals one only reads about in fiction, who seem, when they pass along the dangerous places, to walk upon the air, and, leave no trace behind.”