Part 16 (1/2)

”He has a very bad liver,” was all Tullis deigned to offer in response.

The Countess stared for a moment and then laughed understandingly. ”I think he needs a change.”

”I have a strange feeling that he is but one of a great many men who are in Edelweiss for the purposes I mentioned before. Now I have a favour to ask of you. Will you take this matter up with Baron Dangloss as if on your own initiative? Do not mention me in any way. You can understand why I ask this of you. Let them believe that the suspicions are yours. I trust you to present them without involving me.”

”Trust me, my dear Countess. I am a very diplomatic liar. You need have no fear. I shall find a quick way of getting my friend Dangloss on the right track. It may be a wild goose chase, but it is best to be on the safe side. May I now tell you how greatly I appreciate your confidence in--”

She stopped him with a glance. ”No, you may not tell me. There is nothing more to be said.”

”I think I understand,” he said gently.

”Let us change the subject. I have uttered my word to the wise. Eh bien!

It may not be so bad as I think. Let us hope so, at least.”

”I have a vague notion that you'd rejoice if we should catch your ogre and chop his head off,” said he, coolly lighting a fresh cigarette. She liked his a.s.surance. He was not like other men.

Glancing up at his sandy thatch, she said, with a rueful droop at the corners of her mouth, a contradictory smile in her eyes: ”I shall rejoice more if you do not lose your head afterwards.”

”_Double entendre_?”

”Not at all.”

”I thought, perhaps, you referred to an unhappy plight that already casts its shadow before,” he said boldly. ”I may lose everything else, my dear Countess, but _not_ my head.”

”I believe you,” she said, strangely serious. ”I shall remember that.”

She knew this man loved her.

”Sit down, now, and let us be comfy. We are quite alone,” she added instantly, a sudden confusion coming over her. ”First, will you give me that box of candy from the table? Thank you so much for sending it to me. How in the world do you manage to get this wonderful New York candy all the way to Graustark? It is quite fresh and perfectly delicious.”

”Oh, Fifth Avenue isn't so far away as you think,” he equivocated. ”It's just around the corner--of the world. What's eight or nine thousand miles to a district messenger boy? I ring for one and he fetches the candy, before you can wink your eye or say Jack Robinson. It's a marvellous system.”

He watched her white teeth set themselves daintily in the rich nougat; then the red lips closed tranquilly only to open again in a smile of rapture. For reasons best known to himself, he chose not to risk losing the thing he had vowed not to lose. He turned his head--and carefully inspected the end of his cigarette. A wholly unnecessary precaution, as any one might have seen that it was behaving beautifully.

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as she studied his averted face in that brief instant. When he turned to her again, she was resting her head against the back of the chair, and her eyes were closed as if in exquisite enjoyment of the morsel that lay behind her smiling lips.

”Are you enjoying it?” he asked.

”Tremendously,” she replied, opening her eyes slowly.

”'Gad, I believe you are,” he exclaimed. She sat up at once, and caught her breath, although he did not know it. His smile distinctly upset her tranquillity.

”By the way,” he added, as if dismissing the matter, ”have you forgotten that on Tuesday we go to the Witch's hut in the hills? Bobby has dingdonged it into me for days.”

”It will be good fun,” she said. Then, as a swift afterthought: ”Be sure that the bodyguard is strong--and true.”

CHAPTER VII