Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/642

636 As she said it, her eyes fell on the spot from which she had just lifted the fan: there was a tiny dagger lying there, stuck in an enamelled sheath. It was the same which the small Codran was accustomed to wear at his belt. Gretchen had drawn it once when she was playing with the boy, and she knew that the point was of sharp bright steel.

The memory of that bright point grew distinct before her at this moment. Thinking of it in connection with that calm gaze of despair in Tryphosa's eyes, the bright steel point was by no means reassuring.

"I am very desperate," Tryphosa had said, and she had said it so quietly that the words sounded all the more terrible.

Gretchen glanced at that well-shaped hand which held the feather-fan just now: it could hold that little dagger as firmly, no doubt.

She had grown a shade paler, but she did not move from her place: she remained with her eyes fixed on the jewelled knife, too proud to show the alarm which might turn out to be a foolish fear, and yet not quite able to look away from that narrow coloured case where lay hidden from sight that bright point of steel. It was a consoling reflection, at any rate, to think that, even crediting the Princess with so bloodthirsty an intention, the execution was not likely to be rapid. There certainly would be a margin left for defence.

Gretchen had asked the Princess to put her questions quickly, and Tryphosa was honestly anxious to follow the demand; but the very word "quick" sounded like irony when applied to Tryphosa.

"Yes, I am going to tell you quickly," she said, speaking rather slower than usual. "It is very simple, my question; has István Tolnay told you that he loves you?"

"You have no right to ask me that," cried Gretchen, meeting Tryphosa's gaze. "I refuse to answer your question."

"Has István Tolnay told you that he loves you?"

Gretchen kept silent.

Tryphosa repeated the question a third time, never removing her eyes from Gretchen's face.

Again that something undefined, which she could not explain, and from which she could not escape, took hold of her, and Gretchen answered impatiently –

"Yes, he has."

Not the smallest change became visible in Tryphosa's face: she was quite aware of the answer, but she had put it on one side, as it were, for later consideration, being still busy with something else.

"I have a right to the question, and you shall hear what it is presently."

There was a short silence. In spite of all her fears, Gretchen felt curious. The soft flutter of the fans was the only sound in the room. Tryphosa's fan fluttered slowly, ponderously, in long calm sweeps; Gretchen's fan moved restlessly, quivering in her hand like an imprisoned bird, up and down, in short, feverish strokes, restless and unequal.

They had been silent over a minute, when Tryphosa stopped fanning herself, and clasped her two hands against her breast with a sort of well-pondered vehemence. Her lips were trembling, and her eyebrows drawn together with a painful contraction.

"My God!" she muttered. "He has told her that he loves her. That is my death!"