Failing to force back her fingers he had seized her brooch and torn it from her bodice.
“Minna! Help!” she cried, putting her strength against her assailant’s in a fierce effort to regain the jewel.
The handle of the door was tried and rattled.
“Your friend cannot come to you,” the professor laughed. “Better be reasonable, and——”
With a great thud and snap the door was sent flying open and a man appeared in the opening; the young man who had followed the Princess to the house, and who now took in the scene with a frown under which Professor Parabosco manifestly quailed.
“What does this mean, ruffian?” he demanded. But the fortune-teller was silent. The young man turned to the Princess with a bow.
“May I ask you, madame?”
Save for the flush on her face, she seemed to have regained her habitual composure. “This man, this charlatan whom I foolishly came to consult, has robbed me,” she answered.
“Robbed you?” As he turned to the quacksalver his face, which had softened, resumed its stern expression. Behind him were now two anxious spectators of the scene, the princess’s companion, Minna, and the woman, his wife, perhaps, who acted as usher to the fortune-teller.
“Not robbed,” the fellow cried in defiant reply to the look. “The lady has availed herself of the most transcendent mysteries of our art, and refuses adequate recompense.”