Sagan stood gasping and staring. His passion seemed to choke him as he stood, but the Duke, still exalted by the sense of triumph and power, mistook the silence for speechless humiliation. His temper rose as the other's seemed to sink.
'You can deceive me no more, my lord Sagan!' he cried in a high excited voice. 'You took Colendorp from me, you would now take Rallywood, one by one all my faithful Guard! But I am sovereign still! You shall not tamper any longer with my loyal State; you shall never bring your traitorous German schemes to an issue!'
But there were things impossible for Count Simon of Sagan to endure. Never before had he been twitted with impotence and failure. He could not survive so utter a defeat. A man to bear these things must be less thorough than the Count. He was too fierce, too imperious, to bear so great a reverse. If he must be put to shame before the world, if even a paltry captain of the Guard were to be permitted to negative his will, why then life had best be over!
He seemed to struggle for speech; at last, without warning, his passion leaped into flame. Like a wild beast he sprang across the table at the Duke—the poor snivelling coward who had dared to flay him with his tongue! The old hate fired the new fury as he clutched Gustave.
The Duke gave a shrill feeble cry, not such a cry as one would have expected from a man of his age, and then Selpdorf was between them shouting for the Guard.
'You false hound!' Sagan gnashed his teeth in Selpdorf's face as the Chancellor threw himself upon him.
Shouts and shots, and the wild turmoil of a deadly struggle. Then the Guard had secured Sagan. The Duke stood trembling and incoherent, leaning upon the table, and between them, face downwards on the floor, the Chancellor with a bullet in his groin and for once playing a rôle he had not prepared.
Sagacious, supple, self-seeking, yet not utterly seared, in the last resort he offered up his life for the master he had almost betrayed.