“Is our meeting, then, a crime?”
“My enemies would endeavour to make it such.”
“Let me know who these enemies are, that I may make them mine, too.”
“Shall I take you at your word?” she said gravely. “Yes? Then mark. The one whose enmity I have most cause to dread is the woman with whom you have danced to-night.”
“Pauline de Vaucluse.”
“None other.”
“That is a hard saying.”
“But a true one.”
“That Pauline de Vaucluse would use this meeting to your hurt, and to mine? Nay, I cannot so think of the Baroness. I would that I could bring your highness face to face with her for a few minutes. I feel certain that such interview would end in your becoming the best of friends.”
“Having full proof of her guilt, I have no desire for such an interview,” she answered coldly.