"This thief knew of the presence here of certain exalted personages. He had never been anywhere but in the kitchen quarters and his own room. No servant of mine would have told him anything. There were many hours when I was busy and you played golf that you could have told him. I want your word that the information did not come from you."
"You have it," she said lightly. "Now as that is all I shall go to my room. This hideous place chills me."
"Pauline," Count Michæl said sternly, "I have given you every chance to tell the truth. You have lied. It is in your nature to lie but I thought that one of your training would know when the time came to speak the truth. Such an hour is at hand. The man was your lover. You helped him to escape. That I am certain of. You have betrayed me and my cause—and your cause too—because you are a light of love, a thing who will accept a purchase price and then play false."
"My poor Michæl," she said commiseratingly, "you drink too much of your own plum brandy. Tonight you are crazy. Tomorrow I shall have you begging for a smile from me. As it is I find you tedious. Hentzi, open the door."
The secretary made no move to obey her.
She shrugged her shoulders. Neither of the men judged from her manner the fear that began to enwrap her.
"Yours will be a cold smile tomorrow," Count Michæl said, "and I, for one, shall not envy it. You have betrayed me but in the end I have triumphed. They have caught him Pauline. They are bringing him back to you. Do you think you will be there to aid him when he is my prisoner again?"
If Count Michæl wished for tribute to his victory it was his now.
The confidence left her face. She was white and smileless. The courage and bold carriage of her splendid body seemed taken from her. She leaned heavily on the bare table. Hentzi, a prey always to emotion, could have wept for her forgetting she was his master's enemy.
To Count Michæl her attitude had the effect of whipping into white heat his repressed and savage rage. He had tried to believe that he still stood first in her affection. It was the vanity of the successful man whose desire has outlived his fascination.