"You have every right to be. Suppose—suppose that something should occur to rouse the suspicions of the Countess Zattiany's old friends and they should start investigations in Vienna?"
"They would not see her—nor their emissaries. Dr. Steinach's sanitarium is inviolate."
"Steinach—Steinach—where have I heard that name lately?"
Her eyes flew open, but she lowered the lids immediately. Her voice shook slightly as she replied: "He is a very great doctor. He will keep poor Mary's secret as long as she lives and nobody in Vienna would doubt his word. Investigations would be useless."
"She is there then? I suppose you mean that she is dying of an incurable disease or has lost her mind. But do not imagine that I care to pry further into that. I never had the least idea that you had—— Oh, I don't know what to believe!… Won't you ever tell me?"
"I wonder! No, I think not! No! No!"
"There is something then?"
"Do you know why you still harp on that absurd idea that I am what I am and still am not? Do you not know what it is—the simple explanation?"
"No, I do not."
"It is merely that European women, the women who have been raised in the intrigues of courts and the artificialities of what we call 'the World,' who learn the technique of gallantry as soon as they are lancée, where men make a definite cult of women and women of men, where sincerity in such an atmosphere is more baffling than subtlety and guile—that is the reason your American girl is never understood by foreign men—where naturalness is despised as gauche and art commands homage, where, in short, the game is everything—that most aristocratic and enthralling of all games—the game of chess, with men and women as kings, queens, pawns.… There you have the whole explanation of my apparent riddle. You have never met any one like me before."