“What, that old heretic?” Like other converts, the Princess was inclined to be more orthodox than the Orthodox themselves. “I don’t want to listen to her sermons. She hopes to convert me, I suppose? No, Birnsdorf, I won’t see her.”
“I think, madame, that her only wish is to express her thanks for your kindness to her god-daughter, Lady Philippa.”
“That is quite unnecessary. I sent a message to her by the girl, requesting her not to give herself the trouble. I can’t stand these psalm-singing Evangelicals, although I tolerated little Philippa for the sake of—her family.” Cyril smiled, gathering from this remark that the household at the villa had found Philippa’s society as little congenial as she had found theirs.
“The lady is very old, madame,” ventured the Countess, “and she seems extremely desirous to see you. She entreated me——”
“I tell you, Birnsdorf, I won’t see her. What impertinence! Tell her that I am engaged—that I am always engaged at this hour. As though I should put off Count Mortimer for the sake of receiving her! Didn’t you say you saw him coming? Bring him in, if he has arrived.”
Cyril had moved noiselessly to the farther side of the drawing-room before Countess Birnsdorf lifted the curtain that hung over the doorway. He caught the look of annoyance on her face as she realised that the door between the two rooms was open, but he met her with an expression so absolutely unmoved as enabled her to comfort herself with the assurance that he could not have heard anything.
“Her Royal Highness will receive you, Count,” she said, and the Princess looked up with a very natural start as he passed under the curtained doorway. She was reading a newspaper, which Cyril recognised immediately as the ‘Jewish Colonist,’ a journal conducted by Dr Texelius in German and Jargon, to promote the agricultural and commercial development of Palestine, and its re-population by the Hebrew race. It was not quite the kind of paper one would expect to find in the hands of a great lady of rigidly Orthodox views, but there could be no doubt that the Princess was deeply interested in it.
“Well, Count, are you come to scathe me with bitter reproaches?” she cried, looking up from the closely printed page.
“Alas, madame! your conscience must have outrun my just indignation. I was not even aware I had been injured until now.”
“What a misfortune it is to be in too great a hurry!” cried the Princess. “I thought, of course, that you had heard of my treachery from our friend here, and were come to denounce me. There is no hope of hiding it from you now.”