The Countess laughed, but far from joyously. 'I suppose to-night--I must see him?' she said. She tried as she spoke to press herself more deeply into the pillows, as if she might escape that way. Her flesh crept, and she shivered though she was as hot as fire.
Once or twice in the hours which followed she was almost beside herself. Sometimes she prayed. More often she walked up and down the room like one in a fever. She did not know on what she was trusting, and she could have struck Marie when the girl, appealed to again and again, would explain nothing, and name no quarter from which help might come. All the afternoon the camp lay grilling in the sunshine, and in the shuttered room in the middle of it my lady suffered. Had the house lain by the river she might have tried to escape; but the camp girdled it on three sides, and on the fourth, where a swampy inlet guarded one flank of the village, a deep ditch as well as the morass forbade all passage.
She remained in her room until she heard the unwelcome sounds which told of the general's return. Then she came into the outer room, her eyes glittering, a red spot on either cheek, all pretence at an end. Her glance withered Fraulein Max, who sat blinking in a corner with a very evil conscience. And to Marie Wort, when the girl came near her on the pretence of adjusting her lace sleeves, she had only one word to say.
'You slut!' she hissed, her breath hot on the girl's cheek. 'If you fail me I will kill you. Begone out of my sight!'
The child, excited before, broke down at that, and, bursting into a fit of weeping, ran out. Her sobs were still in the air when General Tzerclas entered.
The Countess's face was flushed, and her bearing, full of passion and defiance, must have warned him what to expect, if he felt any doubt before. The sun was just setting, the room growing dusk. He stood awhile, after saluting her, in doubt how he should come to the point, or in admiration; for her scorn and anger only increased her beauty and his feeling for her. At length he pointed lightly to the women, who kept their places by the door.
'Is it your wish, fair cousin,' he said slowly, 'that I should speak before these, or will you see me alone?'
'Your spy, that cat there,' my lady answered, carried away by her temper, 'may go! The women will stay.'
Fraulein Max, singled out by that merciless finger, sprang forward, her face mottled with surprise and terror. For a second she hesitated. Then she rushed towards her friend, as if she would embrace her.
'Countess!' she cried. 'Rotha! Surely you are mad! You cannot think that I would----'