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 suddenly. “You mustn’t, now you’re mine. Darling, darling, it’s so hard for me—why don’t you speak? I’ve come to tell you that you must be careful. Mon Oncle Charles is already on our track. Yesterday you were wonderful!” Her voice betrayed impatience and anxiety. “Do they watch you all the time? Everywhere? Even in the laboratory? Ah, c’est bête! When you broke that bottle yesterday I could have come over and kissed you. You were so magnificently angry. Do you remember the night when you broke your chain? Then I went after you blindly, blindly”

“Princess,” Prokop interrupted her in a hoarse voice, “there is something you must tell me. Is all this the whim of a great lady or ?”

The Princess let go of his hand. “Or what?”

Prokop turned his desperate eyes to her. “Are you only playing with me”

“Or?” she concluded, with evident delight in torturing him.

“Or do you—to a certain extent”

“—Love you, eh? Listen,” she said, placing her hands behind her head and looking at him through half-closed eyes, “if at any time it seemed to me that that I loved you, really loved you insanely, then I should attempt to  destroy myself.” She clicked her tongue as she had before on that occasion with Premier. “I should never leave you, if once I fell in love with you.”

“You lie,” cried Prokop, furious, “you lie! I couldn’t bear the thought that this was only a flirtation. You’re not so corrupt as that! It’s not true!”