'
'All very fine,' returned the lady. 'With whom do you pass your
days? and which am I to believe, your words or your actions?'
'Anna, the devil take you, are you blind?' cried Gondremark. 'You
know me. Am I likely to care for such a preciosa? 'Tis hard that
we should have been together for so long, and you should still take
me for a troubadour. But if there is one thing that I despise and
deprecate, it is all such figures in Berlin wool. Give me a human
woman - like myself. You are my mate; you were made for me; you
amuse me like the play. And what have I to gain that I should
pretend to you? If I do not love you, what use are you to me? Why,
none. It is as clear as noonday.'
'Do you love me, Heinrich?' she asked, languishing. 'Do you truly?'
'I tell you,' he cried, 'I love you next after myself. I should be
all abroad if I had lost you.'
'Well, then,' said she, folding up the paper and putting it calmly
in her pocket, 'I will believe you, and I join the plot. Count upon
me. At midnight, did you say? It is Gordon, I see, that you have
charged with it. Excellent; he will stick at nothing - '
Gondremark watched her suspiciously. 'Why do you take the paper?'
he demanded. 'Give it here.'
'No,' she returned; 'I mean to keep it. It is I who must prepare
the stroke; you cannot manage it without me; and to do my best I
must possess the paper.
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