She lay back, and took up a small fan from the table at her hand.
“How can I tell? Why do you ask me? Can I guarantee his Excellency’s word?”
“You may be my friend in this place where I have no friends, and advise me.”
A peculiar expression came over her face, a look that I cannot describe, a look of inexpressible bitterness and regret, struggling as it were to get through the mask which her part obliged her to wear.
“I?”
“You, Baroness,” I said significantly.
“I hope I am always your friend,” she replied.
“And as a friend your advice is——”
“I have none to give—on that subject.”
“What then?”