“Do not inquire too closely into my modus operandi, Countess,” said the Baron. “It must be sufficient for you to know that my success is assured.”
“And what do you ask in exchange for this service?”
“Simply this: that for the next two weeks you will take a walk with me every day for an hour in Vaitzen Street; that you will skate with me an hour in the park; and that each evening you will give me the privilege of escorting you to a different theatre.”
“And is that all?”
“All.”
The Countess yielded willingly to the Baron’s terms. At the end of the fortnight, she received a receipt in full for the payment of her taxes—thirty-two thousand florins—and Baron Meyerbach found Hungarian aristocracy ready to receive him with open arms even within its most inner of inner circles. The Countess had launched him.
The story closed in a burst of laughter, and the diplomat Meyerbach’s health was drunk repeatedly and variously.
Of all the convivial party, De Broda alone was silent. Finally, with Goethe’s words in mind, he said in a low voice: “Everybody seeks money, and everybody clings to it.”
Kronenfels flung his cards noisily on the table, looked savagely at De Broda, and said, with an ugly frown: “Do you imply by that that such a woman as Countess Mara Barovic would willingly let herself be blinded by money?”
De Broda shrugged his shoulders.