"But they cannot!"
"I have not told you all. Listen!" She released his arm and sat. "You have misjudged us here. To your Western eyes we were mere actors in a morbid comedy of our own choosing, masqueraders, or fanatics, pursuing our foolish ritual in a sort of mild frenzy of self-absorption. But Nemi means something more than that. It reaches back beyond ancient Rome, comes down through the ages, through Italy, the Holy Roman Empire, through France, Germany and Russia, a secret society, the oldest in the history of the world, and the most powerful, with tentacles reaching into the politics of Free Masonry, of Socialism, of Nihilism, of Maximalism. The society of Nemi, an international society, with leaders in every party, a hidden giant with a hundred groping arms which only need a brain to actuate them all to one purpose."
She paused a moment, her hand at her heart, while she caught her breath. "And that purpose--Monsieur Rowlan'--the saving of the world from autocracy!" she said impressively.
He did not dare smile at her for her revelations were astounding, and in spite of himself all that was venturesome in his spirit had caught of her fire. The rapidity of her utterance and the nature of her disclosures for a moment struck him dumb. How much of this story that she told him was true, and how much born in the brain of the dead Ivanitch? A secret society with ramifications throughout Europe--a power which might pass into the hands of the enemies of France. Rowland was not dull, and clear thinking was slowly driving away the mists of illusion, leaving before him the plain facts of his extraordinary situation.
"I am no believer in mysticism, Mademoiselle Korasov," he said at last, smiling, "nor in a destiny written before I was born. What you tell of the history of Nemi is interesting, what you say of the Visconti very strange, startlingly so, but I am the product of an age of materialism. This drama was born and developed in the brain of a dreamer and zealot. Don't you see? A strange coincidence unhinged him. He attacked me as he might have attacked any other escaping prisoner----"
"But all escaping prisoners are not of the Visconti----" she said.
He shrugged and smiled. "I still think you more than half believe in all this----" he hesitated a moment, and then with cool distinctness, "this fol-de-rol."
She glanced up quickly and rose.
"Listen, Monsieur," she said soberly, "you may believe what you please of the legends of Nemi, but you cannot deny the material facts as to its influence. There are documents here which will prove to you that what I say is true. Members of the Order of Nemi are high in the Councils of the Great--its power is limitless for evil or for good in the world. Whether you believe in it or not, you are its Leader, in accordance with its strange laws of succession, which have come down through the ages, and you are recognized as such by those others yonder, and will be recognized by others who will come. Its High Priest----"
Rowland's gesture of impatience made her pause.