“Count Bernstein,” said Berwick, going up close to him, “tell your master that the Duke of Berwick wishes to see him immediately, or it will be the worse for you.”
Bernstein, highly offended, turned away, but he dared not disobey; he, too, got his share of the two hundred thousand livres.
Berwick and Roger walked about restlessly in the entrance hall. The dancers saw them, and peered curiously at them. Once, through an open door, they caught sight of Michelle, a vision in white and pearls and diamonds, sitting in her chair of state, without a soul near her except a solitary lady-in-waiting, who yawned behind her fan. The rest, men and women, were flocking about the Countess Bertha, who held her court with the Prince at the other end of the saloon.
After a long, long wait, Bernstein came back to say that the Prince would see them in his closet in an hour.
“It must be a short hour,” was Berwick’s comment on this. They were shown into the Prince’s closet, the same room where they had encountered the Countess Bertha three days before. An hour passed. The clock struck two. There was no lull in the crash of music and the beat of the dancers’ feet upon the floor.
At half-past two Berwick had just risen to go in person to the Saloon of the Swans, when the Prince entered. And leaning on his arm was a masked lady laughing very much at something the Prince was just saying. It was the Countess Bertha.
“I beg you a thousand pardons, my lord Duke, and you, Mr. Egremont,” began the Prince, airily, “but the ladies—the ladies bewitched me and kept me beyond my time.”
“It is nothing, so you are here at last,” was Berwick’s reply.
Countess Bertha sank upon a chair, and removing her mask, fanned herself with it She had determined to make a stand to be present at the interview; but apparently no stand was required, as neither Berwick nor Roger took the least notice of her.
“Sir,” began Berwick, without any circumlocution. “I and Mr. Egremont, in whose judgment as a military man I have confidence, have visited within the last two days, Mondberg and Arnheim.”