“You liar,” she cried, beside herself with indignation at the way he was playing with her. “You will tell me next he is not in your house, in your keeping.”
“It is true enough,” he replied coolly. “But I have no power to release him. Perhaps you have, Highness.”
The sneer was worthy of him; he had come to hate this woman whom he might not love.
“We shall see,” she returned. “You refuse?”
“I fear I must—even at the risk of the penalty which your Highness has foreshadowed.”
“Very well, then,” she said. “You shall see how I will keep my word. Come, Captain.”
She turned to Ompertz and prepared to move away.
“Permit me to escort you back to his Excellency,” Irromar said. “He charged me to look after you, and my responsibility is strict.”
“Your responsibility!” she echoed scornfully. “Surely, Count, you have forfeited any claim to that I will never enter your abominable den again.”
“It is most unfortunate,” he replied, with a somewhat mocking show of apology, “that I should have to bear the brunt and odium of your Chancellor’s actions. Surely, Princess,” he continued, as though urged merely by his innate love of setting his actions in a false light, “you must be aware that it was a risky thing to attempt to continue your elopement under the Baron’s very eye; an eye which looks not too favourably on the Lieutenant’s pretensions. I should certainly have warned you against any such mad attempt, had I not thought that your good sense made it unnecessary.”