Bernstein looked at the Prince for confirmation, and a faint nod was enough.
Countess Bertha, ambitious to play the part of a Maintenon, then spoke.
“My advice has not been asked,” she began.
“And will not be, dear lady,” replied Roger promptly. “And if you wish to remain and hear and see all that passes, you must be very good and still, else the Duke of Berwick will request to see the Prince in private, and you will miss a very interesting scene.”
Countess Bertha looked at the Prince, who scowled, and at Berwick, who smiled, and concluded to hold her tongue.
In a few moments more Hugo Stein walked in. He saluted the Prince respectfully, and kissed the hand of the Countess Bertha, and then looking about him, asked suavely,—
“May I ask your Highness’s pleasure?”
His Highness shuffled uneasily in his chair, and mumbled something indistinctly. Berwick spoke for him in a very cool, calm voice.
“Hugo Stein, the affair of the twenty-four guns is discovered. His Highness has precisely thirty days in which to replace them, for they are probably now in the Low Countries, and he has exactly thirty minutes to get rid of you, intriguer and falsifier that you are.”
Hugo Stein was not deficient in personal courage, when driven to the wall. But he was so absolutely wedded to his own interest that he seldom allowed himself the luxury of honest indignation.