"Horrible only if it were really so and we had no proof of it. But I have guarded against that. The war office receives detailed reports of all that is going on in Transylvania, and a transcript of those reports is furnished me."
She produced a roll of manuscript and read a line or two, laughing as she did so. She might have been reading Sanskrit, for all the prince could understand of it. Then she nestled softly at her listener's side and began to stroke his chin with one velvet finger.
"If you wish to make me very happy—to make us both very happy," she murmured, "bring me from the war office the key to this mysterious manuscript. Then we will sit down and decipher it together; and if it contains the name I am so anxious to hear, you shall see how a lioness can kiss her tamer's feet."
The prince listened in silence. What effect her words were producing in his bosom, she could only conjecture. She threw herself back on her sofa with a smile on her face.
"What do you say?" she asked. "It is not yet too late to find some one at the war office to do your bidding. Indeed, the hour is well suited for a confidential mission of that sort. And when you come back, if you find me asleep, just whisper in my ear, 'News from Transylvania!'—and I will wake up at once. So good-bye for the present. I shall expect you back again soon."
Prince Cagliari took leave of the enchantress and made his way to the carriage that awaited him below. Entering it, he gave a direction to his coachman, and the carriage rolled rapidly down the street.
Soon after the fair Cyrene—or Rozina, to call her by her real name—found herself alone, the tall clock in her boudoir struck ten, although the hour was nearer two. She rose at once, and taking a little key from her bosom, unlocked and opened the door of the old-fashioned timepiece. But instead of hanging weights and a swinging pendulum, the opening revealed another open door beyond, through which stepped a young man,—Benjamin Vajdar.
"So you've come at last?" the marchioness exclaimed.
"Yes, and I have the key to the cipher despatches, too!"
All smiles and caresses, the siren led her visitor to the table on which lay the mysterious correspondence. But before the two begin their clandestine work, let us say a few words concerning the relations between them.