This was the thought of him that obsessed her. A liar, always. Why not now? Men of his kind were unusual to women of hers, but even in the midst of his confession—as near self-abasement as a man of his type could come, the note of egotism rang clear above the graceful phrases—too graceful to be anything but manufactured in that clear inventive brain of his.
She paced the floor, thinking deeply, and at last stopped by the window and sought again the counsel of the eternal hills. After a while she turned again into the room and peered into a mirror, seeking in her face the answer to the riddle. It was pale, resolute, but it was not ugly.
She planned her campaign with the calm forethought of a general who picks out his own battlefield, disposing his forces to the best advantage, for attack or for repulse, for victory, or defeat. She must mask her approach, conceal her intentions, and develop slowly the real strength of her position. There was much that she wished to learn as to Schloss Szolnok, and its security from those who sought to intercept them, much in regard to the plans of her captor for the future, but she knew that she must act with caution and skill, if she hoped to escape.
Goritz had previously expressed a wish that when she grew strong enough to leave her bedroom, she would join him at dinner, which she heard was served in one end of the great Hall, but she decided that the first skirmish should take place in a situation of her own choosing. And so after dusk, the moon coming out, she went again upon the terrace where she leaned upon the wall of the bastion and looked down with an air of self-sought seclusion, upon the mists of the valley.
Goritz was not long in joining her. She heard his footsteps as he approached but did not give any sign or acknowledgment of his presence.
"May I talk with you, Countess Strahni?" he asked easily.
Her shrug, under her cloak, was hardly perceptible.
"Since you have already done so it seems that my own wishes do not matter," she said coolly.
"I have no wish to intrude."
Marishka laughed. "I can go in——" She drew her wrap more closely about her throat and straightened.