'Thank you, Friedrich. I will tell you when I wish your assistance,' said Wilhelmine calmly. 'Dear Madame de Ruth, you are right. I think Baron Schuetz knows the way to the guest-chamber? or shall I tell my brother to summon a lackey?' Her tone was haughty to insolence. The irritation, the disgust, the hatred of her odious though necessary plan, made her mood evil. She was grateful to Wuerben for his silence, and his fine, if somewhat contemptuous manner, and she bestowed a smile on him as he passed out of the room. A constrained silence fell on the remaining three. Wilhelmine leaned back in the chair into which she had sunk directly Schuetz and Wuerben disappeared; her elbows rested on the chair-arms, and her fingers were pressed together at the points in an attitude of fastidious, artificial prayer. Madame de Ruth fanned herself slowly and watched Friedrich Graevenitz, who stood paring his nails with a small file he had taken from his pocket. 'I certainly do not like your way towards me, Wilhelmine,' he broke forth, puffing out his fine torso. 'You show a spirit which is not nice towards the head of your family! I think----' 'Dear Friedrich, if you could but realise that I do not care what you think,' Wilhelmine interrupted icily. 'And your manner was not kind to Wuerben--a nice man, I like him!' said her brother in an almost ecstatic tone. 'How fortunate!' she called after Friedrich's retreating figure, as he strode across the room with such pompous haste that the affairs of the whole Empire might have waited his directions. The two ladies smiled at one another wearily when he had gone; then, without honouring this self-sufficient person with a word of comment, they fell to discussing Wuerben. This Bohemian nobleman was not an altogether unpleasing personality. Of middle height, he had a stoop which caused him to appear short; it was not the stoop of the scholar, but that bend which ill-health, caused by debauch, often gives to a comparatively young man. His face was sallow, hollow beneath the eyes, emaciated between chin and cheek-bone. The brown eyes were feverishly bright and a trifle blood-shot. The well-shaven mouth had loose, sensual lips, and the teeth were large and discoloured. And yet one knew that this man, repulsive though he had become, must have been a youth of promise and some personal beauty; and his manner betokened the man of breeding, and one with knowledge of the great world. His sneer at the unholy bargain he was about to make told Madame de Ruth that he was fully aware of the degradation of it. An admirably adapted person for the purpose, she reflected; for, being ashamed of his bargain, he would hide in Vienna, content so long as he had sufficient money to risk at l'hombre and faro. This she and Wilhelmine discussed while Schuetz and Wuerben were upstairs removing their dusty garments.