“You are in love with love,” said Cyril bitterly, “and honour, and self-sacrifice, and all the other things of which Miss Steinherz knows no more than she does of good taste. Don’t you see the girl’s fooling you?” “It may look like that to you, but you don’t know her as I do. She’s playing for a great stake, and she shall have her chance. I won’t let her be able to say that she would have won if I had not baulked her. She won’t win, of course, but at least it won’t be my fault, and she will leave off thinking about it, and we shall be all right.” “She is nothing but an adventuress who can’t make up her mind to burn her boats.” Usk turned very white. “You have no right to say that of the lady who has promised to marry me,” he said. “I beg your pardon; I ought not to have thought aloud. It is a bad habit that has grown on me of late. My dear Usk, if she had promised to marry you I should see daylight. As it is, she may have promised and she may not. Can you assert a promise if the lady sees fit to deny it?” “She won’t deny it. And, anyhow, it’s a thing that only affects me. I am satisfied to wait until she chooses to announce our engagement, and I don’t see what any one else has to do with it.” “In other words, I am to mind my own business. But, unfortunately, this is my business, though I assure you no one can regret it more than I do. I have just heard that the Grand-Duke and Duchess of Schwarzwald-Molzau are on their way here. He is Michael’s uncle, and it is quite natural that he should be frightened by the reports about the Grand-Duchess Sonya, and come to find out the truth for himself, but I haven’t a doubt that he is also commissioned to inquire into Félicia’s affair on behalf of the Emperor of Pannonia, his brother-in-law. They have come to the conclusion that her claim is a serious one, and he is to see if she is presentable, and whether she can be bought off. Now, suppose Michael takes it into his head to say that he will marry Sonya Eugenovna unless he is allowed to marry Félicia, what am I to do? No one would expect me to help him to cut out one of my own family, but I am not allowed to say she is engaged to you. I tell you frankly I should very much prefer to eliminate you from the matter, for you and she are not in the least suited to one another; but it seems that you object to that. It’s what I should like best of all to see Félicia engaged to Michael, and her fortune made useful in re-establishing Thracian credit, and yet I must invent obstacles to prevent it. Of course the usual convenient fiction of the overmastering avarice and ambition of the Mortimer family will come to the front, and I shall be accused of plotting to engineer Félicia into a marriage with you for the sake of her money, and putting her up to this preposterous claim of hers in order to strengthen my position by an alliance with royalty. Pleasant, very!” “I’m awfully sorry, but you can hardly expect me----”