There was no answer. Truth to tell, poor Countess Birnsdorf was dozing in an uncomfortable high-backed chair in the great drawing-room, where she had remained during Cyril’s interview with her mistress, after delivering a softened version of the latter’s message to Princess Soudaroff. Her knitting and her spectacles were left behind in the anteroom beyond the boudoir, where Captain Roburoff was improving the shining hour in a way that would have made her hair stand on end had she known of it, and the low murmur of voices from the intervening room had lulled her to sleep. The imperious tone in which the Princess repeated her summons reached her ears, however, and she made her appearance, full of apologies, at the inner door. The Princess was sitting at the table, her head supported pensively upon her hand. “If Count Mortimer should present himself here again, Birnsdorf, remember that I will not receive him,” she said. “No, madame?” hazarded the Countess, consumed with curiosity. It was evident that the crisis which every member of the household had been anticipating, although the Princess had apparently been blind to its approach, had come; but how, and with what result? “He would scarcely venture to show himself,” pursued the Princess, meditatively, “but one can never tell. And exciting scenes of the kind are too much for me. Positively, I cannot stand them. I am too tender-hearted.” “Indeed, madame, it has made you look frightfully ill.” Countess Birnsdorf was horrified by the strained paleness of her mistress’s face. “You will permit me to summon a physician? No?” Then, her indignation increasing as the Princess shook her head with the smile of a martyr, “I could never have believed that Count Mortimer would forget himself so far as to persist in a conversation disagreeable to your Highness, even if he had the bad taste to enter upon it.” “Ah, when these self-restrained men have once lost control of themselves, there is no holding them. Did you see the poor man go out, Birnsdorf?” “No, madame. I am certain he did not pass through the drawing-room.” “Oh no, of course. I allowed him to escape by the private stair. One does not wish to subject to public humiliation a man who is already unhappy, even though it is by his own fault.” “Ah, madame, in presence of your angelic kindness, I do not wonder that the unhappy nobleman forgot himself.” “Nonsense, Birnsdorf! You are a sad flatterer,” with pathetic sweetness. “Where is Lida?” “I believe her Highness is walking in the gardens with Mlle. Delacroix, madame,” replied the Countess, with a perceptible sniff. The elderly Frenchwoman who had been Princess Lida’s governess, and was now her chosen confidant, played the part of Mordecai to Countess Birnsdorf’s Haman.