Part 26 (1/2)
”I wish I could believe that it was just I you wanted,” he said.
She shot him an upward glance of her siren eyes.
”I have been thinking about this business that we have on hand,” she continued; ”and, Ferdinand, if you wish my aid, you must get busy-I can't endure this stagnation longer. I'm a wild beast that would die in confinement; I need the jungle and the air and sky.”
He laughed, and pinched her ear.
”Your jungle, little one, is the Champs elysees and cher Maxim's; la chaleur communicative du banquet;-your air and sky, the adulation of the masculine and the stare of admiring eyes.”
”Yes, it is; and I've been away a long, long time; yet I want to stay with you until this work is ended-because” (taking his hand and smiling up at him) ”you have been good to me, and because it promises excitement of a novel sort-only, dear, do let us be at it.”
A door swung back. ”Madam is served!” came the monotone.
As they went in, the Duke slipped his arm around her slender waist.
”We're going to be at it,” he said; ”send the servants away and I'll tell you my plan; it was for that I came last evening.”
”Now, tell me!” she exclaimed, as the door closed behind the footman.
”We are going back to Lotzenia,” he said.
She paused, and the black eye-brows went up.
”We?” she inflected.
He nodded. ”That is where the game will be played out.”
”And why not here, in Dornlitz?”
”Because it's easier there-and surer.”
She made to s.h.i.+ver. ”So, for me, it's only out of a charming mausoleum into a common grave.”
He laughed. ”It will be a rarely lively grave, my dear Madeline, and, I promise you, exciting enough for even your starved nerves.”
”When do we start?”
”Soon, I trust-there is work to be done here first.”
”And I may help?”
”Yes, you may help-the plan needs you.”
”And the plan?” she asked eagerly.
”The very simplest I could devise,” said he; ”to lure the American to Lotzenia and--”
She smiled comprehendingly. ”Why take all that trouble-why not kill him in Dornlitz?”
He flung up a cautioning hand. ”Softly, my dear, softly-and not so blunt in the words-and as I said, it's easier there and surer.”