Unless it leads to a revoke, a lie counts for nothing with a police-agent, so he answered at once, "Sent to my bureau from the office, in consequence of an informality in the post-mark."
"You have read it?" pursued the Princess, still calm and unmoved.
"On my honour, no!" answered he, with his hand on his heart, and a low bow.
She would have made the better spy of the two, for she could read even his impassible face, and she knew as well as he did himself that he had, so she quietly returned him the letter, of which she judged, and rightly, that he had kept a copy; and laying her gloved hand on his sleeve, observed, with an air of bewitching candour--"After that affair at Comorn, you and I can have no secrets from each other, Monsieur. Tell me frankly what it is that your employers require, and the price they are willing to pay for my co-operation."
She could not resist the temptation of trying her powers, even on Monsieur Stein; and he, although a police-agent, was obliged to succumb to that low, sweet voice, and the pleading glance by which it was accompanied. A little less calmly than was his wont, and with almost a flush upon his brow, he began--
"You are still desirous of that appointment we spoke of yesterday for the Prince?"
"Ma foi, I am," she answered, with a merry smile; "without it we shall be ruined, for we are indeed overwhelmed with debt."
"You also wish for the earliest intelligence possessed by the Government as to the issues of peace and war?"
"Of course I do, my dear Monsieur Stein; how else can I speculate to advantage?"
"And you would have the attainder taken off your cousin's estates in the Banat in your favour?"