'The most noble lady bade me say that she waited for your Excellency.'
'The brazen wretch!' murmured Sabran, as he crossed the ante-chamber, and entered the small saloon adjoining it; a room hung with Flemish tapestries, and looking out on the Szalrassee.
Olga Brancka was seated in one of the long low tapestried chairs; she did not move or speak as he approached; she only looked up with a smile in her eyes. He wished she would have risen in fury; it would have made his errand easier. It was difficult to say to her in cold blood that which he had to say. But he loathed her so utterly as he saw her indolent and graceful posture, and the calm smile in her eyes, that he was indifferent how he should hurt her, what outrage he should offer to her. He went straight up to where she sat, and without any preface said, almost brutally:
'Madame Brancka, you affected not to understand my message through Greswold; you will not misunderstand me now when I repeat that you must leave the house of my wife before another night.'
'Ah!' said Olga Brancka, with nonchalance, moving the Indian bangles on her wrist, and gazing calmly into the air. 'I am to leave the house of your wife—of my cousin, who was once my sister-in-law? And will you tell me why?'
Sabran flushed with passion.
'You have a short memory, I believe, Countess; at least your lovers have said so in Paris,' he answered recklessly. 'But I think if your remembrance could carry you back to the last evening I had the honour to see you in your hotel, you will not force me to the brutality and coarseness of further explanation.'
'Ah!' she said tranquilly once more, in an unvaried tone, clasping her hands behind her head and leaning both backward against the cushions of her chair, whilst her eyes still smiled with an abstracted gaze. 'How scrupulous you are about trifles. Why not about great things, my friend? What does Holy Writ tell us? One strains at a gnat and swallows a camel. I have heard a professor of Hebrew say that the Latin translation is not correct, but——'
'Madame,' said Sabran sternly, controlling his rage with difficulty, 'pardon me, but I can have no trifling. I give you time and occasion to make any excuses that you please; but once for all, you will leave here before nightfall.'
'Ah!' said Olga Brancka, for the third time; 'and if I do not choose to comply with your desire, how do you intend to enforce it?'