"If you please, not."
When he had graciously bowed her out, he returned to his seat at the desk; and then the forced courtesy of his manner was abandoned. His brows gathered down; his lips were again firm set; he bent one of the pieces of the paper-knife until that snapped too; and when some one knocked at the door, he answered sharply in German.
It was Gathorne Edwards who entered.
"Well, you have got back?" he said, with but scant civility. "Where is Calabressa?"
The tall, pale, stooping man looked round with some caution.
"There is no one—no one but Reitzei," said Lind, impatiently.
"Calabressa is detained in Naples—the General's orders," said the other, in rather a low voice. "I did not write—I thought it was not safe to put anything on paper; more especially as we discovered that Kirski was being watched."
"No wonder," said Lind, scornfully. "A fool of a madman being taken about by a fool of a mountebank!"
Edwards stared at him. Surely this man, who was usually the most composed, and impenetrable, and suave of men, must have been considerably annoyed thus to give way to a petulant temper.
"But the result, Edwards: well?"