“You in Vienna!” she gasped. “Are you, then, a friend of my country?” she asked, in a low, hoarse whisper.
“Why, of course,” he replied. “You are Austrian in all but name. I am a born Italian, but—well, I am a friend of Austria.”
“A well-paid friend—eh?”
“Yes, just as you may be—if you will. The Count is still your friend, and he greatly admires you. It is his one regret that you preferred the Marchese Guilio. He is a good fellow is the Count. He is now prime favourite with the Emperor, and he still remains unmarried. Elena, he thinks always of you, and only you.”
The handsome Elena shrugged her shoulders. The man who had called upon her quite unexpectedly she had first met five years ago in Budapest. He was then a poor Italian composer of music. Yet now, in mysterious circumstances, he was, she knew, in possession of ample funds, and lived in an elegant flat close to the Piazza Colonna in Rome. They exchanged glances, whereupon he settled himself to speak more openly to her, and to give her a verbal message from her old admirer at the Herrengasse.
Carlo Corradini began by laughing at her patriotic devotion to her husband’s country.
“Of course Guilio is a most excellent fellow,” he said. “But, alas! he is merely fighting a lost cause. The Central Powers are bound to win, and it is now for you to assist your own country. Schreyer appeals to you. He knows of your difficulty in meeting that last loan which old Levitski, the Jew, in Milan, made to you a year ago, and—”
“How does he know that?” she inquired, in quick surprise.
“My dear Elena, how does Austria know so many secrets of her enemies?” he laughed. “Schreyer is now head of that department of the Secret Service which deals with affairs here in Italy, and—”
“And you, an Italian, are one of his agents,” she interrupted, in a low, meaning voice.