“Then I don’t mind enlightening you. We’re bound for the Continent by way of Limehouse. A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a yacht off Gravesend. Oh, I have forgotten nothing! By daybreak we’ll be at sea.”
“We?”
“You and I.”
“You deceive yourself, Prince Victor. I shan’t accompany you.”
“How amusing! And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my will?”
Sofia was silent for a little; then, “I can kill myself,” she said, quietly.
“To be sure you can! And when I tire of you, perhaps I’ll humour your morbid inclinations—if they still exist.”
“You are a fool,” Sofia returned, bluntly, “if you think I shall go aboard that yacht alive.”
“Brava!” Victor laughed, and clapped his hands. “Brava! brava!”
He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath even more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube pronounced urgent words in Chinese.