“Monsieur,” said M. Stefanovics, returning, and addressing Mansfield with a judicial air, “we wish to know whether your master has any ulterior object in this extraordinary proceeding?” “Really,” replied Mansfield, with extreme innocence, “I can’t say.” “But does he entertain any hopes--any designs----” “If you will be so good as to ask me a plain question, monsieur, I will try to give you a plain answer.” “Then is he hoping to resume his old position with her Majesty?” “May I ask what that was?” “He was privately betrothed to her.” “If it was private, how is it that you know anything about it?” Confusion kept M. Stefanovics silent for a moment. “Madame Stefanovics was in the secret,” he said at last, “and when the affair terminated, she revealed the whole thing to me, in her indignation against Count Mortimer.” “You and your wife are a pair of chatterboxes!” cried General Banics suddenly, in a fury of indignation. “No secrets are safe with you.” “Thank you, General,” said Mansfield warmly; “I accept the reproof. Count Mortimer’s secrets are safe with me. Not even to you will I reveal them.” M. Stefanovics had been speechless and almost black in the face with rage, but his delight on hearing his colleague thus hoist with his own petard relieved his mind, and he broke into a shout of laughter. “Aha, General, the Englishman is too clever for us! Come, monsieur, what is it you ask?” “All I want you to do is to let me wait in the anteroom while you carry the message to the Queen, so that I may be at hand if her Majesty is pleased to wish to ask me anything.” “Excellent!” said M. Stefanovics, his good-humour quite restored. “Your demands are commendably moderate, monsieur. You will join us at lunch first?” The meal passed off peacefully, although General Banics preserved a persistent silence and an expression of cold contempt towards both Mansfield and M. Stefanovics, and when it became his duty to conduct the uninvited guest to the Institution in the afternoon, he relieved the monotony of the climb by a single remark only. “Understand, monsieur,” he burst out, standing still in the middle of the pathway, and glaring down at Mansfield, who was following him, “if your master succeeds in adding so much as a finger’s weight to her Majesty’s sorrows, I will kill him in her very presence!” “There would be two people to reckon with in such a case, General--her Majesty and Count Mortimer himself,” said Mansfield, with great calmness. “It will be time enough, surely, to avenge the Queen when she asks for your help?”