He hastily turned to the door and pushed it open.
“Come in, gentlemen!” he shouted, and his two colleagues, Roberjot and Debry, immediately appeared on the threshold. Without greeting Victoria, merely eyeing her with cold, contemptuous glances, the two gentlemen entered and walked directly to the desk. Bonnier locked the door and put the key into his pocket.
Victoria saw it, and a slight pallor overspread her rosy face for a moment.
“Will you tell me, sir, what all this means?” she asked, in a threatening voice.
“You will learn it directly,” said Bonnier. “Please sit down again in your arm-chair, for we are going to resume our diplomatic negotiations. You, gentlemen, take seats on both sides of the lady; I shall sit down opposite her, and at the slightest motion she makes, either to jump out of the window there, or to interrupt us by an exclamation, I shall shoot her as sure as my name is Bonnier!”
He drew a pistol from his bosom and cocked it. “I command you to be silent and not to interrupt us,” he said, turning to Victoria. “The pistol is loaded, and, unless you respect my orders, I will most certainly inflict upon you the punishment you have deserved; I shall take your life like that of any other spy who has been caught in a hostile camp.”
He dropped his right hand with the pistol on the table, and then turned to the two gentlemen, who had listened to him in gloomy silence.
“Yes, my friends,” he said, throwing back his head in order to shake away his long black hair, surrounding his face like a mane—“now, my friends, I beg you to listen to my justification. You have latterly believed me to be a fool, a prodigal son of the republic, who, for the sake of a miserable love-affair with a flirt, neglected the most sacred interests of his country. You shall see and acknowledge now that, while I seemed to be lost, I was only working for the welfare and glory of our great republic, and that this woman with her beautiful mask did not make me forget for a single moment my duties to my country. These papers contain my justification—these papers, madame, with which you hoped to revenge yourself. Pardon me, my fairy queen, I have made another mistake, and again brought a wrong portfolio; these are not the documents either which you would like to obtain. Perhaps they are after all in the portfolio lying on the floor there!”
He looked at Victoria with a scornful smile; she fixed her large eyes steadfastly upon him; not a muscle of her face was twitching—not the slightest anxiety or fear was depicted on her features.
Bonnier opened the portfolio and drew the papers from it.