Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/224

 “I’m not satisfied. There’s something dangerous in von Stromberg’s sudden kindness. Act, Doris. We are overheard.” And then in louder tones, “If anything had happened to you”

She glanced around her timidly, her initiative suddenly at a loss.

“N-nothing happened to me,” she repeated bewildered.

“I would have made another death for him—a man’s death at least.”

“It is terrible,” she managed to say, “and I will have been the cause of it.”

He came closer and took her by the hand, speaking distinctly.

“And do you regret that it is Rizzio instead of me?”

“No, no,” she stammered. Her accents of horror were genuine, but it seemed more horrible that she should be making a farce of her genuine emotions. Yet Cyril’s eyes impelled her. “It is terrible. I can’t believe”

“General von Stromberg is not a man to make idle threats. I am glad that I am not in Rizzio’s shoes.”

She saw him pause, his mouth open, gazing upward at the lithograph of Emperor William. To Doris the picture merely typified power, ambition, intolerance of any ideals but those of military glory. But it was not at the portrait that Cyril was looking. He was examining the frame, which was swung a little to one side, revealing a patch of unfaded wallpaper. He looked down into the fireplace thoughtfully and while the girl wondered what he was going to do next, he whirled suddenly and moved quickly toward the door into the hall, which he opened swiftly straight into the face