"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I have done before—if you fail us in a single thing—and do not think we are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"
Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear—she had felt that stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of the things she had adored in him—but to be degraded and exposed, as well as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all these old papers were, she would have to go on—but since he threatened her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially when menaced with a stick?
She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind of humour.
Hans crushed her in his arms.
"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"
Harietta became cajoling—no one could have looked more frank or simple, as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice, and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not clever like they!
"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."
She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.
"To business then, mein liebchen—attend carefully to every word. In England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft, and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands clasped behind him—he would have been a very handsome man but for his too wide hips.
Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except Verisschenzko—Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to him—Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared—much more than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only when—and because—he wanted to, not for the reason that she had conquered him.