"You are satisfied, M. La Tribe?"
"I do not----"
"Man!" With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hannibal dropped the mask. In two strides he was at the minister's side, his hand gripped his shoulder; his face, flushed with passion, glared into his. "Will you play with lives!" he hissed. "If you do not value your own, have you no thought of others? Of these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If she will save them, will not you?"
"My own I do not value."
"Curse your own!" Tavannes cried in furious scorn. And he shook the other to and fro. "Who thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will you give them to the butcher?"
"My lord," La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of himself, "if she be willing----"
"She is willing."
"I have nought to say. But I caught her words indistinctly. And without her consent----
"She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle----"
She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood looking straight before her, seeing nothing. "I am willing," she muttered with a strange gesture, "if it must be."