“I shall tell him that is your boast.”
“You can tell him if you like. He will not believe you, and he certainly will not question me.”
“But what could his marriage, were there any question of it, matter to you?” Her curiosity got the better of her rage.
“That is my affair,” he replied. “To be quite frank with you, it does not matter to me in the least, but I do not intend you to step into my daughter’s place. She is my daughter, though many years have passed since I saw her; and you, madame, shall not sit where she sat, love where she loved, sleep where she slept; you shall not do her that injury. A sentimentalism, you think. No, I am not sentimental, though I come of the land of Werther. But a few years ago you did me a bad turn when I was weak enough to trust you, and I do not forget easily. I can prevent you from reaching the Canaan of Vanderlin’s wealth, and I intend to do so. I know what you would do; you would entice him with exquisite skill, and it is possible that you would make him your dupe; in finance he is clever, but in the affections he is a child. Well, take warning; let him alone, for if you attempt to succeed with him, I shall intervene. That is all. I have told you to desist because I am not desirous of approaching the man who, as you observed, dishonored my daughter before all Europe. But if you do not listen to good counsels I shall do so, for I repeat I do not intend you ever to reach the Canaan of his riches.”
Then, without waiting for any reply from her, he rose, bowed with the courtly grace which to the last distinguished him, and left her presence walking with that feebleness which infirmity and years entailed, but with a pleased smile upon his face and as much alacrity as he could command, for he was in his haste to return to the tables of Monte Carlo.
She remained in a sort of stupor, staring at the smoked-out cigarette which he had left behind him on the ash tray.
She had been so utterly astonished, humiliated, and disgusted that she had not had presence of mind enough to charge him with having brought about his daughter’s ruin by his own intrigues and falsehoods.
Unfortunately too she knew so little, so very little, only what the Archduke Franz had hinted to her, and with that weak weapon of mere conjecture she could not have discomfited so skilled and accomplished a master of fence as was Prince Khristopher of Karstein.
How she wished, oh! how she wished that she had let him have his fair share of the spoils of Harrenden House! There are few things more utterly painful than to have done mean, ungenerous, and dishonorable acts, and find them all like a nest of vipers torpid from cold which have been warmed on your hearth and uncurl and hiss at you.
“My greatuncle came to call on you!” said young Prince Woffram with astonishment and curiosity. “I saw him in the hall; I don’t speak to him, you know—we none of us do. But I felt sorry——”