The Countess stepped into the room in silence, threw herself on a chair, and crossed her legs. In her lace and velvet, with a good display of smooth black stocking and of snowy petticoat, and with the refined profile of her face and slender plumpness of her body, she showed in singular contrast to the big, black, intellectual satyr by the fire.
“How often do you send for me?” she cried. “It is compromising.”
Gondremark laughed. “Speaking of that,” said he, “what in the devil’s name were you about? You were not home till morning.”
“I was giving alms,” she said.
The Baron again laughed loud and long, for in his shirt-sleeves he was a very mirthful creature. “It is fortunate I am not jealous,” he remarked. “But you know my way: pleasure and liberty go hand in hand. I believe what I believe; it is not much, but I believe it.—But now to business. Have you not read my letter?”
“No,” she said; “my head ached.”
“Ah, well! then I have news indeed!” cried Gondremark. “I was mad to see you all last night and all this morning: for yesterday afternoon I brought my long business to a head; the ship has come home; one more dead lift, and I shall cease to fetch and carry for the Princess Ratafia. Yes, ’tis done. I have the order all in Ratafia’s hand; I carry it on my heart. At the hour of twelve to-night, Prince Featherhead is to be taken in his bed, and, like the bambino, whipped into a chariot; and by next morning he will command a most romantic prospect from the donjon of the Felsenburg. Farewell, Featherhead! The war goes on, the girl is in my hand; I have long been indispensable, but now I shall be sole. I have long,” he added exultingly, “long carried this intrigue upon my shoulders, like Samson with the gates of Gaza; now I discharge that burthen.”
She had sprung to her feet a little paler. “Is this true?” she cried.
“I tell you a fact,” he asseverated. “The trick is played.”