"Pooh!" came scornfully from her lips. "If you molest me further I shall call Mr. Lorry. Let me pass!"
"Just glance at this paper, my beauty. I fancy you'll change your tune. It goes before the eyes of the council, unless you—" he paused significantly.
Beverly took the document and with dilated eyes read the revolting charges against her honor. Her cheeks grew white with anger, then flushed a deep crimson.
"You fiend!" she cried, glaring at him so fiercely that he instinctively shrank back, the vicious grin dying in his face. "I'll show you how much I fear you. I shall give this revolting thing to the princess. She may read it to the cabinet, for all I care. No one will believe you. They'll kill you for this!"
She turned and flew into the presence of the princess and her ministers. Speeding to the side of Yetive, she thrust the paper into her hands. Surprise and expectancy filled the eyes of all assembled.
"Count Marlanx officially charges me with—with—Read it, your highness," she cried distractedly.
Yetive read it, pale-faced and cold. A determined gleam appeared in her eyes as she passed the document to her husband.
"Allode," Lorry said to an attendant, after a brief glance at its revolting contents, "ask Count Marlanx to appear here instantly. He is outside the door."
Lorry's anger was hard to control. He clenched his hands and there was a fine suggestion of throttling in the way he did it. Marlanx, entering the room, saw that he was doomed. He had not expected Beverly to take this appalling step. The girl, tears in her eyes, rushed to a window, hiding her face from the wondering ministers. Her courage suddenly failed her. If the charges were read aloud before these men it seemed to her that she never could lift her eyes again. A mighty longing for Washington, her father and the big Calhoun boys, rushed to her heart as she stood there and awaited the crash. But Lorry was a true nobleman.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "Count Marlanx has seen fit to charge Miss Calhoun with complicity in the flight of Baldos. I will not read the charges to you. They are unworthy of one who has held the highest position in the army of Graustark. He has—"