“Speak! What do you demand?”
“First, that treaty of commerce, which you must sign just as Count Lipandorf has drawn it up.”
“I consent to do so.”
“That is not all; you shall take my place at the rendezvous, get into the post-chaise, and run away with your wife; but first you must sit down at this table and write a letter, in due diplomatic form, to Prince Maximilian, informing him that, finding it impossible to accept his stipulations, you are compelled to decline, in your sovereign’s name, the honour of his august alliance.”
“But, Colonel, remember that my instructions——”
“Very well, fulfil them exactly; be a dutiful ambassador and a miserable husband, ruined, without wife and without dowry. You will never have such another chance, Baron! A pretty wife and a million of florins do not fall to a man’s lot twice in his life. But I must take my leave of you. I am keeping the Baroness waiting.”
“I will go to her.... Give me paper, a pen, and be so good as to dictate. I am so agitated——”
The Baron really was in a dreadful fluster. The letter written, and the treaty signed, Florival told his Excellency where he would find the post-chaise.
“One thing more you must promise me,” said the young man, “and that is, that you will behave like a gentleman to your wife, and not scold her over-much. Remember the flaw in the contract. She may find somebody else in whose favour to cancel the document. Suitors will not be wanting.”