"I would if I could, but I do not know her, monsieur."
"Well, Morét, I like your loyalty, even to one who has used you as a mere tool, and who is now rejoiced to learn that you are dead, and out of her way, with the dangerous secrets you possess. I am going to her as soon as I leave you; perhaps she will talk about you again."
Morét stared at me unwinkingly, but with a countenance that was like marble in its intensity. I knew that he was suffering, and that my words were the cause of his agony. I knew that I was prodding him deeply and severely, thrusting the iron into his soul with as little compunction as a Mexican charo exerts when he "cinches" a heavily burdened burro. But I was doing it with malice prepense, and I was doing it for a purpose.
I wished, somehow, to compel this man to talk freely with me about the princess and yet all the time I was reluctant in my own soul to have him do it. During that interval Morét was greater than I; more chivalrous than I; for he remained loyal to his duty towards her, as he saw it, in spite of the terrible accusation I had made against her womanliness, and notwithstanding all the insinuations I had put forward, respecting her utter disregard and contempt for him.
"Perhaps she will do so," he said; "that is, if she knows aught to say of me."
He was silent for a moment after that, and I waited, knowing that I had tried this man to the utmost point of his mental endurance.
Presently he raised his eyes again to mine, and said:
"Mr. Dubravnik, at the very beginning of our acquaintance, when you made a prisoner of me in one of the rooms of the suite you were to occupy in the palace, I told you that I had gone into this business for the love of a woman, and it was tacitly, if not literally agreed between us at that time, that the woman's personality and name should form no part of our future discussions. You have chosen, at this time, to mention a princess, to whom you give the name of Zara de Echeveria, and I have told you that I know no such person; that the name means nothing to me. What you may surmise, Mr. Dubravnik, can have no effect upon me, or upon your relations with me, or mine with you. So now I tell you once again, that while I am perfectly willing to believe myself to be morally free to discuss with you all phases of nihilism, I will not discuss this woman you have named, or any other woman."
He bowed his head and I could see beads of sweat upon his forehead which betrayed the mental anguish he was undergoing. I knew that it was far worse than physical torture, and as there was nothing to gain by prolonging it, and nothing more to be said, I withdrew.
At the end of another half hour I was announced to the princess.