At that moment a recollection flashed across her mind. It had slipped her memory until that instant. This man had on one occasion, in Rome, two years ago, spoken tenderly to her, and she had scorned his attentions. With a woman’s quick perception, she now saw that the fact that she had rejected him still rankled within his mind. Yet she was still young enough to be his daughter, and had always held him in dislike. He was a cold, scheming diplomatist, who would stake his very soul in order to get the better of his adversaries.
“Once you spoke of love to me,” she said, drawing herself up proudly. “Now you ruthlessly cast my past into my face. Even if I have acted as a diplomatic agent, you know well enough that all these scandalous stories about me are foul libels set about by Montelupo and yourself for political purposes.”
“Enough!” he cried, incensed at her words. “We need not discuss that now. I demand to know why I find you prying here, in my room?”
She smiled. “I came to see Carmenilla,” she answered.
“And she invited you to lunch?—you whom I have forbidden her to know!” he exclaimed, exasperated. “A woman of your stamp is no companion for my daughter.”
“Yet you once told me that you loved me, and I might, if I had felt so inclined, have now been the Countess Castellani, and done the honours of this Embassy. Ah, my dear Conte,” she went on, “you are a noted diplomatist, and no doubt as wary and cunning as most of your confrères. But you forget that every woman is by birth a diplomatist, and that in politics I have had a wide and, perhaps, unique experience.”
“You possess the ingenuity and daring of the very devil himself,” he blurted forth. “Show me that paper.”
“No,” she answered firmly. “It is in my possession—and I keep it.”
“You’ve stolen it!” he cried, advancing towards her determinedly. “Give it to me this instant.”
“I shall not.”