She continued a while longer in the same cruel vein, her basilisk eyes glued upon mine—I couldn't get away, try as I might—while Wilhelm, my self-proclaimed cavalier, did naught to help me. Indeed, I had to endure her abuse till Zara herself became tired of hurling invectives, and turned upon the Crown Prince with: "Twenty marks, please. I have wasted enough time."
Then, like an imprisoned wild thing, seeing the open gate, I fled.
Oh, Franz, what does it all mean?
BERTHA.
CHAPTER XIII
"WE WILL DIVIDE THE WORLD BETWEEN US"
Dazzling the War Lord—Bartering Kingdoms—Juggling with the Church
Franz Este, masquerading for incognito purposes as Duc de Lorraine, was a tall, closely-knit man, no more at home in mufti than a gorilla in pyjamas. A bronzed face, disfigured by the Habsburg lip and an air of disdain, one would have picked him out of thousands as a person to avoid!
His speech was a cross between a military command and the snarl of an angry dog when addressed to persons beneath his rank, and against such the physical advantages he boasted were ruthlessly exploited. Franz was impervious to heat or cold, hence the officers of his household and his servants had to endure both in the extreme without proper protection.
"If the master can do without an overcoat, or wear a close-fitting uniform when it is a hundred in the shade, why not you, menials?"