She took it, examined it well, and then, with a hollow, artificial laugh, declared:
"It certainly is not mine. I once had a bag very similar, but mine was not of such good quality."
"Are you really quite certain, Countess?" I demanded in a low, persuasive voice.
"Quite," she declared, though I knew that she was lying to me. "But why trouble about that bag while there is a point much more important—the safety and whereabouts of His Imperial Highness?" she went on in a great state of agitation. "Tell me, Count, exactly what occurred—as far as you know."
I recounted to her the facts just as you have already written them down, and as I did so I watched her thin, crafty old face, noticing upon it an expression full of suspicion of myself. She was, I now realized, undecided as to the exact extent of my knowledge.
"How did you know that the young man's name was Krahl?" she asked eagerly. "You had perhaps met him before—eh?"
But to this leading question I maintained a sphinx-like silence. That the little old woman who had so unexpectedly become a lady-in-waiting was playing some desperate double game I felt sure, but its exact import was still an enigma.
"In any case," she said, "would it not be as well to return to the Neue Schenke and make search?"
I smiled. Then, in order to let her know that I was acquainted with Italian, the language she had spoken on that well-remembered night in her own conservatory, I exclaimed:
"Ahe! alle volte con gli occhi aperti si far dei sogni." (Sometimes one can dream with one's eyes open.)