“Faith, my dear!” said he with a grin, and not a whit abashed by her reproach, “honour, when lost, may be recovered; one’s life, never.”
“You come with news, I understand?”
“Unpleasant news,” returned Baranoff, affecting a mournful air, in reality secretly delighted, as knowing that the tidings would alarm her. “Unpleasant news I regret to——”
“Hold! the Baroness must pay toll for our tidings. Toll,” added Benningsen, significantly. “You know what I want.”
“I do, but unfortunately the knout is not here, but at the Citadel. The Count will be but too pleased to accommodate you.”
The jest was a true one. Nothing would have pleased Baranoff more than to see Benningsen tied up to the knouting-post. Baranoff gloried in the fact that it was he, and he alone, that had persuaded Paul to make war with England. Benningsen was sneeringly confident that the Count would be the first to sign a peace as soon as ever the British fleet appeared in Finland waters.
“Toll!” repeated Benningsen. “A bottle of—what shall it be? Who was it that said, ‘Port for boys, claret for men, brandy for heroes’?”
“Louis, a bottle of port for the General,” said Pauline sweetly.
“Ach! but you’re down on me to-night,” grinned Benningsen.