"Ah, Phadrig, my friend, punctual, of course; and equally, of course, you have something important to impart. Your wire just caught me in time to put off an engagement which, happily, is of no great consequence. There's the coffee, and you'll find the cigars you like in the second drawer. Now, what is the news?"
His guest filled a cup of coffee and took a cigar and lit it before he replied. Then, turning to the Prince, he said in his usual slow, even tone:
"Highness, I regret to say that my news is both urgent and bad."
"It would naturally be urgent," said the Prince, turning quickly towards him, "but bad I hardly expected. Well, all news cannot be good. What is it?"
"I fear that my warning was even more urgent than I thought it myself—I mean, in point of time. Your Highness is already being watched."
"What! A Prince of the Empire, the man whom they call the Modern Skobeleff, an intimate of Nicholas! What should I be watched for?" exclaimed the Prince, half angry and half astonished. "The thing is ridiculous; another of your dreams!"
"Ridiculous it may be, Highness," replied Phadrig, quite unruffled, "but it is no dream; and, moreover, the eyes which are watching you are keen ones—and they are everywhere. You are under the surveillance of the International Police."
These were not words which even a Prince of the Holy Russian Empire cared to hear. Oscarovitch was silent for a few moments, for the earnestness, and yet the calmness, with which they were spoken made it impossible for him to doubt them. As he had asked, what could such a man as he be watched for by this thousand-eyed organisation of which he himself was one of the supreme Directors? It was impossible that these people could suspect his great scheme of treachery and self-aggrandisement. That was known to only three persons in the world—himself, Phadrig, and the Princess Hermia; and the Princess, the woman who had willingly sacrificed her brilliant young husband to her guilty love and her boundless ambition—no, she could be no traitress. It must be something else: and yet what?
He took two or three rapid turns up and down the room, chewing and puffing at his cigar, until he stopped before Phadrig, and said quietly, but with angry eyes:
"Very well, we will grant that I am watched by the International. Tell me how you came to know it."