Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/47

 "It is late," she said, half in explanation, half to keep the man's mind on matters other than herself; "in a quarter of an hour the fête will be a thing of the past, monsieur."

"And the guests all departed on their various ways," he said—merely to make talk.

She favored him with a sidelong glance. "Not all," she returned, with a meaning which he failed to grasp, and stopped before a closed door, of which she handed him the key. He opened in silence, and they passed into a large room and gloomy, furnished rather elaborately as a library and study, its walls lined with shelves of books.

In the center of the room stood a great desk of mahogany, upon which rested a drop-light with a green shade that flooded the desk itself with yellow radiance, leaving the rest of the apartment in shadow.

The princess marched with determination to the farther side of the desk and there seated herself. "The door, monsieur," she said imperiously: "you will lock it."

Wondering, he did her bidding; then stood with his back to it, instinctively in the pose of an orderly awaiting the command of a superior officer—shoulders back, head up, eyes level, feet together, hands at sides.

She noted the attitude, and relented a trifle from her frigid mood. "That Colonel O'Rourke is a soldier is self-evident," she said. "Be seated, monsieur,"—motioning to a chair on the opposite side of the desk.

Again he obeyed in silence; for, in truth, he feared to trust his tongue.

The woman lowered her lashes, drawing off her gloves slowly, as though lost in deepest meditation. As a matter of fact she was planning her campaign for the subjugating of