Corsini looked at her steadily. "Madame, you have been good enough to call me your friend. If that is the case, why have I not been invited to those little private suppers at your villa? So many go, that one more would not have made a serious addition." Her face went as white as death. "Who has told you such a falsehood?" she stammered. Nello never took his eyes off her. The white face, the stammering tongue, proved that Golitzine was right. She had secret parties at her villa, and she was dismayed to find that anybody had heard of them. "A friend of mine, whose name I must not reveal, Madame." Without another word Madame Quéro went to her dressing-room. From there she despatched a hasty note to Prince Zouroff. CHAPTER XIII La Belle Quéro and the Prince Zouroff were sitting together in the boudoir of the small villa on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. They were both smoking cigarettes. Madame Quéro looked anxious and perturbed, Zouroff surly and annoyed. "Inez, you are very unreasonable. Why have you dragged me here at this time of night? If your note had not said 'very urgent,' I should not have taken myself away from more important matters." La Belle Quéro flicked the ash of her cigarette on the carpet. "Once, my friend, you would have come on the slightest request from me. I should not have been compelled to mark my note urgent, eh?" The Prince answered a little awkwardly. "Don't let us be too sentimental, dear child. We have been good friends, we have got to a closer degree of comradeship. Is it not an ideal relationship? Well, what have you to tell me? You have not summoned me here for nothing, I am sure?" "Not even for the pleasure of your society, my most charming and exquisite Boris?" inquired the _prima donna_, in a tone of raillery. The Prince frowned. At the moment, the light caprices of women did not appeal to him. "You are talking nonsense, my dear Inez. Let us come to the point." The Spanish woman came to the point at once, with an angry glitter in her eyes. What a pity that Zouroff was not a little more gentle in his dealings with women! "Our little secret evening parties have been discovered, that is all. It may give you and me food for reflection." The Prince drew a deep breath. "Discovered! It is impossible. Who dares to suspect us?" "It does not matter who suspects us. It is enough that we are suspected. I suppose the Secret Police have been at work." Zouroff thought a few moments, and then a sudden light came to him. He crossed over and grasped the beautiful young woman by the arm. "Tell me the truth and don't palter with me," he thundered in his harsh, raucous tones. "Where have you this information? But I can answer the question myself. It is from that white-livered Italian, Corsini. He is a spy in the pay of Golitzine." Madame Quéro endeavoured to utter a faltering negative, but Zouroff, always fond of brutal methods, tightened his grasp on the delicate flesh.