Page:Stevenson - Prince Otto. A Romance.djvu/202

 She had sprung to her feet a little paler. ‘Is this true?’ she cried.

‘I tell you a fact,’ he asseverated. ‘The trick is played.’

‘I will never believe it,’ she said. ‘An order in her own hand? I will never believe it, Heinrich.’

‘I swear to you,’ said he.

‘O, what do you care for oaths—or I either? What would you swear by? Wine, women, and song? It is not binding,’ she said. She had come quite close up to him and laid her hand upon his arm. ‘As for the order—no, Heinrich, never! I will never believe it. I will die ere I believe it. You have some secret purpose—what, I cannot guess—but not one word of it is true.’

‘Shall I show it you?’ he asked.

‘You cannot,’ she answered. ‘There is no such thing.’

‘Incorrigible !’ he cried. ‘Well, I will convert you; you shall see the order.’ He moved to a chair where he had thrown his coat, and then drawing forth and holding out a paper, ‘Read,’ said he.

She took it greedily, and her eye flashed as she perused it.

‘Hey!’ cried the Baron, ‘there falls a dynasty, and it was I that felled it; and I and you inherit!’ He seemed to swell in stature;