"Leo, do not speak!" cried Wanda, half entreating, half commanding; but, in his jealousy, the young Prince lost sight of every other consideration.
"I will speak," he returned, in his exasperation. "My word only bound me until the wager was won, and I have just seen with my own eyes in whose favour it is decided. How often I have begged of you to make an end of the sport. You knew it wounded me, that it drove me to desperation. You persisted in it, nevertheless. Am I to submit quietly while Waldemar, in his fancied triumph, shows me the door--I, who am witness of how you undertook to bring Waldemar to his knees, come what might? Well, you have succeeded; but at least he shall know the truth!"
At the first word 'wager,' a great shock had passed through Waldemar's frame; now he stood motionless, grasping the back of the chair convulsively, whilst his eyes were turned on the young Countess with a strange expression.
"What--what does this mean?" he asked, in a hoarse whisper.
Wanda drooped her head consciously. There was a struggle in her mind between anger against Leo and shame at her own conduct; while, sharper than either, prevailed a feeling of keen, intense anxiety. She knew now how cruelly the blow would tell! Leo, too, was silent--struck by the sudden change in his brother's countenance; he began also to feel how unjustifiably he had acted in exposing Wanda, and how needful it was for him to stop.
"What does this mean?" repeated Waldemar, suddenly rousing himself from his torpor, and going straight up to the young girl. "Leo speaks of some wager, of some sport of which I have been the object. Answer me, Wanda. I will believe you, and you only. Tell me that it is a lie!"
"So I am a liar in your eyes," broke out Leo; but his brother did not heed him. The young Countess's silence told him enough--he needed no further confirmation; but, with the discovery of the truth, all the savage fierceness of his nature rose up within him, and now that the charm to which he had so long yielded was broken, that fierceness carried him beyond all bounds.
"I will have an answer!" he broke out in a fury. "Have I really only been a plaything for you, an amusement for your caprices? Have you been laughing at me, making a mock of me, while I ... You will give me an answer, Wanda--an answer on the spot, or I ..."
He did not finish the sentence; but his look and tone were so menacing that Leo stepped before Wanda to protect her. She, too, now drew herself erect, however. The sight of the young man's ungovernable rage had given her back her self-possession.
"I will not allow myself to be questioned in this manner!" she began, and would have added words of proud defiance, when suddenly her eye met Waldemar's, and she stopped. Though his features still worked with passion, there was something in his look which told of the man's unspeakable mental torture at seeing his love scorned and betrayed, the ideal he had worshipped hopelessly and utterly destroyed. But her voice seemed to recall him to his senses. His clenched fists relaxed, and he pressed his lips tightly together, as though resolved that no further word should pass them. His breast heaved convulsively in the mighty effort he was making to restrain his rage. He staggered, and leaned against the chair for support.