I believed now that what I had hoped was true. He was "bluffing." He
wanted me to flounder into some admission, and to make him a promise in
order to save the man I loved. I was only a woman, he'd argued, no
doubt--an emotional woman, already wrought up to a high pitch of nervous
excitement. Perhaps he had expected to have easy work with me. And I
don't think that my silence after his last words discouraged him. He
imagined me writhing at the alternative of giving up Raoul or seeing him
ruined, and he believed that he knew me well enough to be sure what I
would do in the end.
"Well?" he said at last, quite gently.
My eyes had been bent on my lap, but I glanced suddenly up at him, and
saw his face in the light of the street lamps as we passed. Count
Godensky is not more Mephistophelian in type than any other dark, thin
man with a hook nose, keen eyes, heavy browed; a prominent chin and a
sharply waxed, military moustache trained to point upward slightly at
the ends. But to my fancy he looked absolutely devilish at that moment.
Still, I was less afraid of him than I had been since the day I stole
the treaty.
"Well," I said slowly, "I think it's time that you left me now.
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