The young man smiled, but with no mirth in his smile.
“Something horrible has happened, though not a suicide,” he answered sadly. “My poor granduncle Khris, the one who came to you the other day, has fallen down in a fit at the rouge-et-noir table yonder.”
With a gesture toward the east he indicated Monte Carlo, which lay in the distant curves of the coast.
“Is he dead?” she said eagerly.
“No. But he is dying. Hugo von Börn told me. He has just come from there. He saw it.”
“You seem singularly afflicted!” said Mouse with a little laugh to conceal the impression which the news made on herself.
“Well,” said Prince Woffram with embarrassment, “the death of a good man, you know, isn’t half so shocking as the death of a bad one.”
“Indeed?” said Mouse. “I should have thought just the contrary. But then I don’t see things by the light of the Lutheran religion! Where did Prince Khris live? Who had he with him? Who will look after him?”
“I fear he is past looking after. Where his lodgings were I don’t know; they were something very poor, for all his money went at the tables. I think—don’t you think?—I ought to go and see if I can do anything for him?”
“But your people don’t know him, you say?”