"I am, at any rate, ready to listen to you."
She looked at me piercingly during a rather long pause.
"If I thought" she began, but checked herself abruptly.
"Your thoughts are always shrewd," I returned.
At the reply she looked up and laughed, with such an expression of malignity that it made her face hateful, for all the beauty of her eyes.
"You little know how shrewd this time, Count Benderoff, or you would drop that insipid conventionality, I promise you."
"You are pleased to speak in riddles."
"Yes, because you act them," she retorted, almost fiercely. "But I promise to be plain enough before I leave you. I will drop the one if you will drop the other—but, there, you'll have to, as you'll soon see."
"I do not pretend to understand you," said I.
"Well, then, I'll try to make you. You are not generally dull. Tell me plainly, if you can, on what side are you in all these matters? The question is merely to give you a chance of being frank with me, for I know much."
"I seek the same object as yourself—the freedom of Bulgaria."
"Aye. In the name of a Woman, you mean? You think I do not know your canting phrase."
I was on my guard now, and did not let her see my surprise at her words.
"I have the honour to bear a commission in the Prince's own regiment, as you know," I answered evasively.
"The commission I got for you. Of course I know. But what do you mean by that empty answer? Are
