Part 79 (2/2)
”Then she has come to see you,” Sogrange continued. ”What does it mean, I wonder?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders.
”We shall know in a minute.”
There was a knock at the door and his servant entered, bearing a card.
”This lady would like to see you, sir, on important business,” he said.
”You can show her in here,” Peter directed.
There was a very short delay. The two men had no time to exchange a word. They heard the rustling of a woman's gown, and immediately afterwards the perfume of violets seemed to fill the room.
”The Baroness von Ratten!” the butler announced.
The door was closed behind her. The servant had disappeared. Peter advanced to meet his guest. She was a little above medium height, very slim, with extraordinarily fair hair, colorless face, and strange eyes.
She was not strictly beautiful and yet there was no man upon whom her presence was without its effect. Her voice was like her movements, slow and with a grace of its own.
”You do not mind that I have come to see you?” she asked, raising her eyes to Peter's. ”I believe before I go that you will think terrible things of me, but you must not begin before I have told you my errand.
It has been a great struggle with me before I made up my mind to come here.”
”Won't you sit down, Baroness?” Peter invited.
She saw Sogrange and hesitated.
”You are not alone,” she said, softly. ”I wish to speak with you alone.”
”Permit me to present to you the Marquis de Sogrange,” Peter begged. ”He is my oldest friend, Baroness. I think that whatever you might have to say to me you might very well say before him.”
”It is--of a private nature,” she murmured.
”The Marquis and I have no secrets,” Peter declared, ”either political or private.”
She sat down and motioned Peter to take a place by her side upon the sofa.
”You will forgive me if I am a little incoherent,” she implored. ”To-day I have had a shock. You, too, have read the news? You must know that the Count von Hern is dead--killed in the railway accident last night?”
”We read it in the Daily Telegraph,” Peter replied.
”It is in all the papers,” she continued. ”You know that he was a very dear friend of mine?”
”I have heard so,” Peter admitted.
”Yet there was one subject,” she insisted, earnestly, ”upon which we never agreed. He hated England. I have always loved it. England was kind to me when my own country drove me out. I have always felt grateful. It has been a sorrow to me that in so many of his schemes, in so much of his work, Bernadine should consider his own country at the expense of yours.”
Sogrange drew a little nearer. It began to be interesting, this.
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