'Yes, I know. I know! But he is coming!'
'It was impossible! He could not leave His Highness. Isolde, you would not wish it!'
'What does anything matter unless it's found out?' cried Isolde, giving in her adherence to a common creed. 'Did you give him all my message? Did you make him understand? Then, when all else failed, you asked him for the cigarette case? That would remind him——' Madame de Sagan spoke in growing agitation.
Valerie looked into her wild eyes.
'I forgot that,' she admitted.
Isolde shook the arm she held.
'You have killed him! Valerie, you have been jealous of me, and by your jealousy you have killed him! Had you spoken as I told you he would be here now—and safe! As it is he is lost!' she flung herself down among the cushions.
Her slender hands were clenched, her turquoise eyes stared wide and blind from her white face. She seemed to hold her breath as if waiting for the inevitable blow to fall. Valerie, greatly moved, knelt down beside her.
'What does it matter if we die to-night or a month hence?' Isolde spoke in a low voice; her heart had unconsciously been gathering up bitterness against Valerie, and she had no longer the strength to conceal it under this unbearable strain. 'Valerie, you have stooped to meanness—you who have so scorned meanness in others. You knew long ago what—Rallywood's love was to me. You have known my life, and much that I have to bear. Amongst all who pretend to love me there is not one like him, not one! He would be always kind and true. I think these are English qualities, for in another way there is Major Counsellor——' the weary voice broke off as if too tired for more.
It was well Counsellor never heard that little expression of opinion concerning himself; it might have proved the thorn in a somewhat callous diplomatic memory.