"Mine?" Vita shrugged her superb shoulders, and crossed over to the mantelpiece, where she stood resting an elbow upon it. "But I know what you mean." She sighed a regret. "You found me through your old Secret Service friends. I ought to have remembered." Then she smiled, and her eyes fixed themselves intensely upon the gross face of the man. "But I wanted to forget that. I wanted to remember only the man who had risen by the force of his own personality and attainments to high military command in our beloved Fatherland. You see, _General_, there is no woman but delights in the advancement of her friends over the open road of honor. The secret, underground roads,"--she shook her head,--"no, they are not for a woman's delight in her--friends. They may be necessary, but--they are--underground." Her purpose was better achieved than perhaps she knew. At the same time, however, she was incurring a serious risk in another direction. The passions of this Prussian were easily stirred. They had been stirred before when he had been younger, when perhaps his experience had not inspired him with so much of the cynicism and selfishness which had come to him through the ruthlessness of his recent campaigning. His ideals of womanhood, if he had ever really possessed any, were now completely negligible. Never in his doctrine could woman be anything but the amusement of man. This Princess at one time had suggested to his mind a means of advancement in his career. Now she was merely the daughter of the man who had sought to injure him, a man whom he was convinced was a traitor to his country. She was even something more than merely his daughter. She was something in this man's schemes and plans. This being so, he was left without compunction regarding her. She was beautiful and--a woman. He was a man. Moreover he felt that his was the power to impress his will upon her in any direction he chose. This was the Prussian who ever reckons without his adversary. Von Salzinger settled himself in a comfortable chair and spread out his legs, while Vita pressed an electric bell. "Maybe," he said drily. "But those underground channels have served me well--in the present instance. So I can't feel as you do towards them. Do you know, Princess," he went on, with greater warmth, "the sight of you last night left me no longer master of myself. Even then I knew where to find you. Seeing you again impelled me here to-day. I could not wait. I have come here to England in my first leisure to see you--in the hopes that you have at least forgiven if not forgotten our last meeting. You see, I was so much younger then, if not in years at least in the knowledge of those things which humanly speaking really matter. Four years! It seems a lifetime since I was with you."