Page:In the name of a woman (1900).djvu/99

 and honour, a great Prince, if I would but stoop to do her bidding. I will not; and therefore my choice to abdicate or die. Would God it could have been different!"

I was silent in the rush of thoughts these utterances roused.

"You will not tell the Countess Bokara this? It is my grief, the bitterest irony of all my position, that I am driven thus to mislead the one friend who has been staunch to me, the truest friend God ever gave to a disappointed man, a foiled and thwarted Prince. I have told you—it will, indeed, be public knowledge in a few weeks from now, and Europe will reap the crop which her vacillation has sown—that you may not be buoyed up with false hopes from this grant of the commission. It would be a Greek gift, indeed, did I not tell you the truth—that you have nothing to hope from it. I can guess, of course, what the result will be. You will be drawn to the Russian net. That is a vortex which sucks in everything."

"What is that?"

I turned like a needle to the magnet as I heard the ringing tones of the Countess Bokara, who had entered the room unknown to us.

"Who will join the Russian party—you, Count Benderoff?" she cried eagerly, almost fiercely, as she came quickly forward. "No. Prince, I will answer for him. He dare not," she added.

"How much did you hear, Anna?" he asked rather uneasily.

"Enough to rouse my indignation, that was all."

"I was telling the Count that there is no hope to be gained in my service, and there is but one side here for a man of action."