Wilfrid acknowledged the high honour conferred upon him, adding— “This must be a somewhat expensive habit on your part?” “Not so, my lord,” replied Pauline with a charming curtsey. “It is not _every_ guest I treat in this way.” CHAPTER IX A DOCUMENT MISSING While Wilfrid was thinking that if Pauline’s ways with Ouvaroff were as fascinating as her ways with him, it was no wonder that the poor Prince’s head was turned, the maid Vera, who had gone off on some errand for her mistress, now re-entered, bearing a salver, upon which lay two name-cards. “Visitors, my lady.” Just the trace of a frown appeared upon Pauline’s face as she took the cards in her hand. Wilfrid’s society was much more interesting than that of Count Baranoff and General Benningsen. She was on the point of feigning some excuse for not receiving them when Vera remarked, “They say they have startling news.” “In that case I’d better see them.” And bidding Wilfrid excuse her absence for a short time she descended to that same entrance-hall in which she had held her first interview with him. Baranoff and Benningsen had met by chance upon the steps of the Embassy, each bringing the same piece of news, the Count intending to communicate it to the Ambassador, the General to Pauline. Though apprised of Wilfrid’s arrival, Baranoff knew nothing whatever of his arrest and escape, and it was only in the interval of waiting that he heard the story from Benningsen. The news filled the Count with secret rage. Hitherto hating Pauline a little, he now began to hate her more. To think that but for her he might this night have had Wilfrid a prisoner in the Citadel, subjecting him to insult and degradation! Instead of which Wilfrid had now found powerful champions in the Ambassador and his daughter! Mingled with Baranoff’s ire was a high degree of fear. Self-interest had prompted him to withhold from Paul the reason of his failure at Berlin, and in thus hoodwinking the Czar he had committed a kind of treason. Now should Wilfrid have given Pauline the correct version of that affair, it would perhaps go the round of St. Petersburg society, bringing upon him ridicule and mortification, to say nothing of dismissal from office—or worse, should the matter reach the ears of the Czar. Had he not sent in his card to the Ambassador’s daughter, he would now have retreated. A coward at heart, he glanced apprehensively at the door by which Pauline would enter. Supposing she should appear in company with Wilfrid, and he with taunting tongue should renew the challenge! Outside the Embassy Baranoff was a great man, a man to be feared, a man who, with a few strokes of his pen, could send an opponent to Siberia; but his power stopped at the door of the Embassy; inside it he was helpless, and no match for the mocking Baroness and the devil-may-care Englishman. It was a relief to him when Pauline entered alone.