The count evidently was not done. He moistened his lips. There was a dryness in his throat.
"It is not too late" he said; "I have not yet touched them."
"We shall not indulge in moralizing, if you please," interrupted the colonel, with savage irony. "The moment for that has gone by."
"Very well." Karloff's shoulders settled; his jaws became aggressively angular; some spirit of his predatory forebears touched his face here and there, hardening it. "I wish to speak in regard to your daughter."
"Enough! Take my honor and be gone!" The colonel's voice was loud and rasping.
Karloff rested his hands on the table and inclined his body toward the colonel.
"Listen to me," he began. "There is in every man the making and the capacity of a great rascal. Time and opportunity alone are needed—and a motive. The other night I told you that I could not give up your daughter. Well, I have not given her up. She must be my wife."
"Must?" The colonel clenched his hands.
"Must. To-night I am going to prove myself a great rascal—with a great motive. What is Russia to me? Nothing. What is your dishonor or my own? Less than nothing. There is only one thing, and that is my love for your daughter." He struck the table and the flame of the student-lamp rose violently. "She must be mine, mine! I have tried to win her as an honorable man tries to win the woman he loves; now she must be won by an act of rascality. Heaven nor hell shall force me to give her up. Yes, I love her; and I lower myself to your level to gain her."
"To my level! Take care; I am still a man, with a man's strength," cried the colonel.