"What is your interest? Is it a bet, a whim, or—enmity?"
"You may count it the latter," the prince replied deliberately.
Calavera laughed softly to herself.
"Now, for the first time," she confessed, "I feel interest. This is where one realizes that we live in the most impossible age of all history. The great noble who seeks to destroy the poor young man from the country is powerless to wreak harm upon him. You can neither make him a pauper nor have him beaten to death. Why are there princes any longer, I wonder? You are only as other men."
"It is an unhappy reflection, but it is the truth," the prince admitted. "My ancestors would have disposed of this young man as I should a troublesome fly, and it would have cost them no more than a few silver pieces and a cask of wine. To-day, alas, conditions are different. It will cost me more."
She trifled for a moment with the salad upon her plate, which as yet she had scarcely tasted.
"I am feeling," she remarked, "magnificently Oriental—like Cleopatra. The sensation pleases me. We are bargaining, are we not—"
"We shall not bargain," the prince interrupted softly. "It is you who shall name your price."
She raised her eyes and dropped them again.
"The prince has spoken," she murmured.