'Something. I do not know what,' the girl answered in a troubled tone.
The Countess rose suddenly. 'Ah! I would like to choke her!' she cried hoarsely. She stretched out her arms.
'Hush, hush, my lady!' Marie whispered. The Countess's violence frightened her. 'I think, if you can put him off until to-night, we may contrive something.'
'We? You and I?' my lady said in scorn. But as she looked at the other's pale, earnest face, her own softened, her tone changed. 'Well, it shall be as you wish,' she said, letting her arms drop. 'You are a better plotter than I am. But I fear Fraulein Cat, Fraulein Snake, Fraulein Fox will prove the best of all!'
Marie's frightened face showed that she thought this possible, but she said no more, and would give my lady no explanation, though the Countess pressed for it. It was decided in the end that the Countess should plead sudden illness, and use that pretext both to avoid Fraulein Max, and postpone her interview with the general until the evening.
He came at noon, and the Countess heard his horses pawing and fretting in the road, and she sat up in her darkened room with a white face. What if he would not accept the excuse? If he would see her? What if the moment had come in which his will and hers must decide the struggle? She rose and stood listening, as fierce in her beauty as any trapped savage creature. Her heartbeat wildly, her bosom heaved. But in a moment she heard the horses move away, and presently Marie came in to tell her that he would wait till evening.
'No longer?' the Countess asked, hiding her face in the pillow.
'Not an hour, he said,' Marie answered, indicating by a gesture that the door was open, and that Fraulein Max was listening. 'He was--different,' she whispered.
'How?' my lady muttered.
'He swore at me,' Marie answered in the same tone. 'And he spoke of you--somehow differently.'