I heard her ring for Threlka, heard her fasten the door behind her as she left, heard him gulp over his glass. For myself, although I did not yet disclose myself, I felt no doubt that I should kill Pakenham in these rooms. I even pondered whether I should shoot him through the temple and cut off his consciousness, or through the chest and so let him know why he died. After a time he seemed to look about the room, his eye falling upon the littered floor. "My key!" he exclaimed; "broken! Who did that? I can't use it now!" "You will not need to use it, my lord." "But I bought it, yesterday! Had I given you all of the Oregon country it would not have been worth twenty thousand pounds. What I'll have to-night--what I'll take--will be worth twice that. But I bought that key, and what I buy I keep." I heard a struggle, but she repulsed him once more in some way. Still my time had not come. He seemed now to stoop, grunting, to pick up something from the floor. "How now? My memorandum of treaty, and torn in two! Oh, I see--I see," he mused. "You wish to give it back to me--to be wholly free! It means only that you wish to love me for myself, for what I am! You minx!" "You mistake, my lord," said her calm, cold voice. "At least, 'twas no mistake that I offered you this damned country at risk of my own head. Are you then with England and Sir Richard Pakenham? Will you give my family a chance for revenge on these accursed heathen--these Americans? Come, do that, and I leave this place with you, and quit diplomacy for good. We'll travel the continent, we'll go the world over, you and I. I'll quit my estates, my family for you. Come, now, why do you delay?" "Still you misunderstand, my lord." "Tell me then what you do mean." "Our old bargain over this is broken, my lord. We must make another." His anger rose. "What? You want more? You're trying to lead me on with your damned courtezan tricks!" I heard her voice rise high and shrill, even as I started forward. "Monsieur," she cried, "back with you!" Pakenham, angered as he was, seemed half to hear my footsteps, seemed half to know the swinging of the draperies, even as I stepped back in obedience to her gesture. Her wit was quick as ever. "My lord," she said, "pray close yonder window. The draft is bad, and, moreover, we should have secrecy." He obeyed her, and she led him still further from the thought of investigating his surroundings. "Now, my lord," she said, "_take back_ what you have just said!" "Under penalty?" he sneered. "Of your life, yes." "So!" he grunted admiringly; "well, now, I like fire in a woman, even a deceiving light-o'-love like you!" "Monsieur!" her voice cried again; and once more it restrained me in my hiding.