"I will go to Roumania; I will see him," she said presently.
Odin smiled again at that.
"It would be a hazardous journey, and I fear an unprofitable one," said he.
"It can be no less profitable than the silent friendship of those who should speak. But we are talking in parables," she said quickly, "and for once I believe that you are telling me the truth."
"A flattering admission. I will do my best to be worthy of it. Let us continue the story as we began. Your friend is a prisoner in the house of my friends. They will release him upon the day I command them to do so—not an hour before. They are my servants, Lady Evelyn—and in the Carpathians to obey is the only commandment known to them. Should I say to them 'this man must not return to England,' then he would never return. I think you can understand that. It rests with me to save your friend's life or to ... but we are a long way from coming to that yet."
Evelyn trembled but she did not speak. The plain issue of that duel of sex could not be hidden from her. She was in the house of a man who had brought her there by a trick; a scoundrel and an adventurer, and she was alone. The price of Gavin Ord's liberty was the surrender of her honor. She understood and was silent, and the man knew that she understood.
"We are a long way from that," he continued, with a new note in his voice which spoke chiefly of his passion for her. "I hope that we shall never come to it. When I first saw you in London, Lady Evelyn, I said that there should never be another woman for me. I say so again to-night. If you do not marry me, I will never marry. Yes, I love you, and I am of a nation that learns from its childhood how women should be loved. Consent to be my wife and I will live for nothing else but your happiness. Your English friend shall win his liberty to-morrow; your father shall be my father's friend. I will live where you wish to live, serve you faithfully, have no thoughts but those you wish me to have. Evelyn—that is what I would first say to you to-night—that I love you—that you must love me—that I cannot live without you."
He bent over her and tried to touch her hand. She did not doubt that she had become, as he said, the great hope of his life. And just as she had said in Derbyshire, "Etta Romney would marry him," so now for an instant did the same voice speak to her to tell her the truths of such a passion as this and to put the spell of its great temptation upon her. Then, white and trembling, the true Evelyn spoke.
"Count Odin," she said, "I love another man. I must answer you once and forever—this cannot be; it is impossible."
He heard her patiently, did not yet threaten her, and, indeed, continued to be such a lover as he had declared the men of his nation to be.