At this point Irma burst into a flood of tears. ‘You are unkind; you are ungrateful!’ she sobbed. ‘We have done all we could for you, and you repay us by saying you hope you will soon go.’ Irma’s tears were more than Jack could bear. He felt he was making a muddle of things. Ungrateful! Why, if he lived a hundred years he would never forget their kindness! He stepped to the angry girl and laid one hand on her arm. ‘Countess,’[7] he said, ‘you do not understand. It is duty calls me, not inclination. I am a soldier and’---- The door was suddenly flung violently open, and Vladimir Sominoff rushed in. ‘So, dog, scum!’ he hissed, ‘you dare to lay finger on a daughter of the house of Pauloff;’ and he struck at Jack. Irma, however, threw herself in front of him. ‘Touch him if you dare!’ she cried, her eyes blazing like those of a tigress. Sominoff choked back his rage and gave vent to a mocking laugh. ‘Stand aside,’ he said, seizing her by the wrist, ‘the countess shall talk to you. I will settle with this clod.’ ‘Coward, you hurt me!’ she cried in cutting tones; ‘but it is only what one might expect from a man who would leave a helpless prisoner to be frozen to death on a winter’s night.’ This allusion to Jack maddened Sominoff. He must have squeezed her wrist, for she screamed out. Next moment, however, the gaudily uniformed Hussar was sprawling on the floor, dashed there by a blow from Jack’s fist. With a hoarse cry he leapt to his feet, and tearing his sword from the scabbard rushed on Jack. The latter snatched up a chair and stood facing the infuriated Russian. ‘Leave us, countess,’ Jack said; ‘I think I can give this feather-bed dandy a lesson in swordsmanship that will lower his pride.’ CHAPTER XLII. TREACHERY AT WORK. Hardly had Jack and the infuriated Russian faced each other, when, even before Irma could interpose, Count Pauloff, who had evidently followed his cousin, rushed into the room. He took in the position in one glance, and, stepping between his cousin and Jack, began to talk rapidly in Russian. Irma joined in the conversation, speaking vehemently, stamping her foot and looking from one to the other with heightened colour and flashing eyes. Vladimir Sominoff answered angrily at first; then, mastering his temper, he spoke more calmly, a sneer upon his lips the while. Jack stood aloof, and from the little Russian which he had learnt from Irma he was able to gather that the count was upbraiding his cousin for having made a scene, while Irma poured contumely upon him with great zeal. Presently all three left the room, Sominoff going first, and the count taking his sister’s arm. She apparently wanted to speak to Jack before she went; but the count, with his hand on the handle of the door bowed her out, then himself retired, shutting and locking the door behind him.