"It is for a woman you do this," Pauline said. "It is because of a woman you are cold and ask no help of me."
"I can't prevent your wild guesses," he answered. There was no mistaking his distaste of her meddling.
"I do not give up easily," he told her. "I used to think that in a duel between love and duty love should always win. It doesn't seem to work out that way always. And I used to think that a man who had not been worthy of a woman should be given a chance to rebuild his life if he really loved her." He shook his head. "It isn't the right idea. Sentimental nonsense the world calls it. The wedding gift a man offers his bride is his past." He shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't qualify."
Anthony Trent looked at the rough wall and saw only those dancing days of happiness and love in another castle. And instead of Pauline with her world weary face, her knowledge of every art to hold men, he saw his slim and lovely Daphne. He knew that both of them loved him. Vaguely he understood that Pauline had come to offer to save him but he had kept her from telling him so yet. There might conceivably be a future with her in which he would find eventually his old ambitions stirring and his pride in his hazardous work revive. There might even be years that were almost happy; reckless, passionate, quarrelling years. But the thought of it was nauseating. He swept it aside. He remembered the phrase of Private Smith in the dug-out that he was dying in better company than he knew. Well, Anthony Trent if the worst came would die better than he had lived.
To Pauline, who loved him, the idea of a violent ending to one of his ability and address was tragic.
An Austrian by birth, Pauline had been taken to Berlin then blossoming into extravagant and vulgar night life by a mother who was a dancer. Vain, ambitious and jealous of the success of others, Pauline offered no objection to anything whereby she might become widely known. Later, when she had attained international fame as a skater she grew more selective in her affairs. She was the rage for several years and but for the suicide of a Serene Highness would never have been banished from Berlin.
Count Michæl Temesvar was an old admirer. The war swept away Pauline's possessions and there was no manager to engage her at a living wage.
At twenty-eight she had known many capitals, enjoyed great success and never been really in love. Then she saw Anthony Trent on the golf links and never passed a moment but was filled with thoughts of him. His consistent repulsing of her threw her into moods of anger which she visited mainly on her protector. And when she summoned scorn and anger to her aid in dealing with this Alfred Anthony, she found them only ministers to her infatuation.
She looked around as Hentzi came into the cell.
"It is ten minutes," he whispered.