"My dear Colonel, you have only to step out of it. It is the eleventh hour; it is not too late." But Karloff watched the colonel eagerly.
"How in God's name can I step out of it?"
"Simply reimburse me for that twenty thousand I advanced to you in good faith, and nothing more need be said." The count's Slavonic eyes were half-lidded.
"To give you back that amount will leave me a beggar, an absolute beggar, without a roof to shelter me. I am too old for the service, and besides, I am physically incapacitated. If you should force me, I could not meet my note save by selling the house my child was born in. Have you discounted it?"
"No. Why should I present it at the bank? It does not mature till next
Monday, and I am in no need of money."
"What a wretch I am!"
Karloff raised his shoulders resignedly.
"My daughter!"
"Or my ducats," whimsically quoted the count. "Come, Colonel; do not waste time in useless retrospection. He stumbles who looks back. I have been thinking of your daughter. I love her, deeply, eternally."
"You love her?"