"Sure of him!" said Sophie, in a voice that was little above a whisper, and leaning forward and looking at her father with a smile which made even him think her beauty almost repulsive for the moment. "Edward Williams is as much in love as Boris Bernovitch was, and is--although he is where he is. I have promised, as usual. He has believed me, as usual, just like any other fool of his sex. Day after day I have met him and talked with him in what he calls my adorable foreign English. I have given him rendezvous which would have startled my Lord Orrel and all his belongings out of that abominable, habitual calm of theirs, and perhaps procured me a request to leave the house immediately. I have fooled him out of his seven senses, and to-night I have performed the supreme sacrifice for Russia, and let him kiss me." The cruelly smiling lips changed into an expression of contemptuous disgust as she said this, and the count replied, coldly: "Not a pleasant duty, Sophie; but for Holy Russia her servants must do everything. That, as I have tried to teach you almost as soon as you could speak, is our duty, almost our religion. Our fortune, our lives, our everything must be devoted to the emperor and to Holy Russia--soon now, I hope, to be mistress of the world. You as a woman, and a beautiful woman, have your weapons; I as a man, and a diplomatist, have mine. It is your duty to use yours with as little scruple as I use mine. "And so you really think," he went on, after a little pause, "that it will be possible to capture the _Nadine_, with all her noble and gallant company on board, and compel her to join our Russian expedition to Boothia Land. Certainly, it would be a brilliant triumph if we could. We should have all the heads of the great Trust at our mercy--Lord Orrel, his son, and this most objectionably straightforward Clifford Vandel, who, it would appear, has so vastly improved upon the original scheme. Then we should have the womankind too--Lady Olive, Miss Vandel, and the beautiful marquise herself, always dangerous power that might work against us. By the way, Sophie, has it struck you that the young viscount is wavering in his allegiance to the fair American under the influence of the beautiful daughter of the Condés?"