'Will you sign it or not?' asked Vàsàrhely.
She replied by tearing it in shreds.
'It is easily rewritten,' he said, unmoved. He went to a writing-table that stood in the room, looked for paper and found it, and wrote out the same formula.
'Do not be foolish, Olga,' he said curtly, as he returned. 'You are a clever woman, and always consult your own interests. I dare say you have done a thousand things as base as your attempt to ruin my cousin's happiness, but I do not suppose you have often done anything so unwise. You will sign this at once, or you will regret it very greatly.'
'Why should I sign it?' she said insolently. 'The man is what I say; he could not deny it. If I only guessed at the truth, I guessed aright. I wonder that you do not see your interests lie in exposing him. When the world knows he is an impostor Wanda will divorce him and put the children under other names in religious houses. Then you will be able to marry her. I told him she would marry you pour balayer la honte.'
For the moment she was alarmed at the fires that leapt from Vàsàrhely's sombre eyes. It cost him much—as much as it had cost Sabran—not to strike her where she stood. He paused a second to control himself, then answered her coldly and calmly—
'My cousin will never seek a divorce, nor shall I wed with a divorced woman. Your hate misleads you; there is no blinder thing than hate. You will sign this paper, or I shall telegraph for my brother.'
'For Stefan!'
All her boundless indifference to her husband, and her contempt for him, were spoken in the accent she gave his name.
'For Stefan. You are pleased to despise him because you can lead him into mad follies, and can make him believe you are an innocent woman. But Stefan is not altogether the ignoble dupe you think him. He is a dupe, wiser men than he have been so; but he would not bear your infidelity to him if he really knew it, nor would he bear other things if he knew of them. Two years ago you took two hundred thousand florins' worth of diamonds, in my name, from my jeweller Landsee in the Graben. How should a tradesman suspect that a Countess Brancka was dishonest? At the end of the year he brought his bill for that and other things to me, whilst I was in Vienna. He had never, of course, doubted that you went on my authority. Equally, of course, I did not betray you, but paid the amount. When you do such things you should not give written orders. They remain against you. Now, if Stefan knew this, or if he knew that you had taken money from the richest of your lovers, the young Duc de Blois, as I knew it so long as seven years ago, you would no longer find him the malleable easily-cozened fool you deem him. You would learn that he has Vàsàrhely blood in him. I have only named two out of the many questionable facts I know against you. They have been safe with me. I would never urge Stefan to a public scandal. But, unless you sign this, and apologise for using my name to the husband of my cousin, as you used it to Landsee of the Graben, I shall tell my brother. He will not divorce you. That is not our way; we do not go to lawyers to redress our wrongs. But he will compel you to retire for your life into a religious house—as you would compel the harmless children of Wanda; or he would imprison you himself in one of our lonely places in the mountains, where you would cry in vain for your lovers, and your friends, and your menus plaisirs, and none would hear you. Do not mistake me. You have often called us barbaric; you will find we can be so. As I say, we do not carry our wrongs to lawyers. We can avenge ourselves.'