I told him. His face grew graver and whiter every moment. “What does it mean?” I said. “Is it officialism gone mad?”
“Worse than that,” he replied. “I cannot tell you. Only for your life, for the lives of all of us, don’t breathe a word of it—not even to yourself.”
I looked at him inquisitively, and indeed my curiosity was greater than my concern. “Is there any danger,” I asked, “in my inquiring the name of the fellow who honoured me with the cross-examination?”
“Do for Heaven’s sake dismiss the whole affair,” Von Lindheim answered impatiently. “Don’t think we have done anything wrong,” he added quickly; “it is less and yet worse than that. Our only chance is that we were not recognized.”
They had been, of course, and it was on the tip of my tongue to say so, but I checked myself, thinking I would not add to his uneasiness, unreasonable as it seemed. There I made a great mistake, as the story will show.
“We had better get back to the ball-room,” my friend said nervously. “Do you know there are said to be twenty thousand separate pieces in that great chandelier? It is one of the most elaborate specimens of glass work in the world.”
My inspection of this interesting piece of work was cut short by Von Lindheim’s directing my attention, in an equally abrupt manner, to a specimen of Nature’s handicraft far more engaging.
“Here,” he said, “let me introduce you to Fräulein Asta von Winterstein. She is one of the Maids of Honour, and the most charming girl in Buyda.”
The Fräulein’s looks decidedly confirmed his words; a merry-looking girl, with a lovely face, and that air of youth and spirits which is so eloquent of the joie de vivre.
“You are fortunate in getting a dance with Fräulein von Winterstein,” Lindheim said.