“Perhaps—but not so as to be blind to the truth. You had him there this afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed. Why else should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty thousand guineas for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn’t deceive a—a Royal Academician! Yes: he bid it in for you—the sorry fool!—bought with his own money the evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor in your affections—and expects you here to-night to receive it from him and—pay him his price! Ah, don’t try to deny it!”
He growled like a very animal, beside himself. “Why else should you be admitted to these rooms without question in his absence?”
Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into those distorted features.
“Yes,” she commented: “quite, quite mad.”
As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled and for an instant stood gibbering. And she took advantage of this moment in one lithe bound to put the table between them.
The manoeuvre sobered him. He did not move, but in two breaths forced himself to cease to tremble, and subdued every symptom of his passion. Only his face remained sinister.
“Graceful creature!” he observed, sardonic. “Such agility! But what good will that do you, do you think? Eh? Tell me that!”
It was her turn to shiver, and inwardly she did, who was never quite able to combat the fear which Victor could inspire in her by such demonstrations of the power of his will. The self-control which he had always at his command was something that passed her understanding; it seemed inhuman, it terrified her.
Nevertheless, so exigent was this strait, she continued to confront him with a face of unflinching defiance.
In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: “The letters are mine. You shan’t have them.”