"I have trapped you who tried to trap me," he cried. "You love Olga Hofmann."
"Yes, I love her," Karl cried loudly. "I love her, and yet I will marry Elsa. Now, I have listened to your infernal lies; I have watched you gloat over them. Men like you steal a woman's reputation and boast of it and call it a success. But you shall pay for it, now, this minute, when I kick you out of the house. Out with you, like a sneak-thief that you are!"
He advanced determinedly on Millar, who quietly faced him.
"Remember, Karl, that I have the pistol now," he said coolly.
"Out with you, you sneak-thief; I am not afraid of you," Karl cried again.
He was about to seize Millar by the throat, when he started back in amazement at what seemed to be the fulfilment of the other's sinister promise. Olga stepped through the door into the room. She was clothed from head to foot in a beautiful, shimmering, fur-trimmed cloak.
Above the top button gleamed her bare throat. Her white arms projected from the short sleeves. The hem of the skirt fell to the tips of her white satin shoes.
As Olga entered she gave one glance at Karl and then moved away from him, and stood beside the table at which she and Millar had been seated. She saw the wild rage stamped on his face, and her woman's intuition made her know that Millar had told him what she had divined he meant. The situation frightened her, and she felt on the point of fleeing from the room or casting aside the cloak; but she resolved to see the game through.
Karl stared at her, rage giving place to amazement, then to despair. For full a minute no one spoke. The music floated in softly from the ballroom, mingled with the hum of voices and laughter. Olga was the first to break the stillness, but she did not look at him as she spoke.
"Karl, this is the first time I have had a chance to talk with you to-night," she said.