Ragna had dropped her face in her hands and was weeping as though her heart were broken, but the tears were of rage rather than of grief.

"Compensation! How dare he!"

"Listen, Mademoiselle, listen! Ragna, don't cry like that! Listen to what I have to say to you! That was my official message, but this is what I really come to say." His face was pale and his eyes blazed.

"Ragna I have loved you ever since we first met,--I love you still--"

She interrupted him with an hysterical laugh.

"What, you too! This is too funny!"

"Ragna, don't! I love you--"

"Don't talk to me about love, I have learned what that means!" She now sat stiffly, her head held upright.

"Poor child," he said gravely, "my love is not of that kind, I want to marry you, Ragna."

"But you don't understand," she cried, "surely you can't know, or you would not say that!"

"I do know," he said, still very gravely, "I know all, and because I realize that you are a victim, because I love you really and want to have the power to protect you, I ask you plainly: will you be my wife?"

She smiled cynically. It was too much. In the light of her terrible disillusionment she could not understand the sincerity of the man. Her whole world had fallen in ruins about her and the dust of her broken idol obscured her vision. Angelescu had made the fatal mistake of delivering Mirko's message, and Ragna having found one man so utterly vile, could not, for the moment, believe generosity or magnanimity possible in any other. "He thinks it would be convenient to have me married to his aide," she thought. "Find the girl a husband, and all is comfortably arranged!" She despised Angelescu for lending himself to such a scheme.

"I think not, thank you," she said in a hard voice.

"You are in love with him?"

"Love him? I despise him!"

"Then think well if you are doing right," he said earnestly, "in refusing a man who not only loves you but respects you, who is, above all things, anxious for your welfare."

"I see, you mean that beggars should not be choosers!"

He considered her compa.s.sionately, and it was in a very gentle voice that he said:

"I know that I have not chosen a good time for this--but I had no choice. To-morrow I must accompany the Prince," his mouth twisted as he said it, "back to Montegria, but before going I had to see you, I had to tell you that I love you, that I shall stand by you, that I am at your disposal, to take, or to leave."

"Very kind of you," she answered in that cold, hard voice, so unlike her own.

"I see that you are determined to misconstrue me," he said sadly, "and I am sorry, for surely no man ever offered a woman a more sincere or whole-hearted devotion than that I lay at your feet. Oh, little Ragna, if only you would come to me, I should make you forget."

"I think, Count," interrupted Ragna, rising, "that I will go back to my friends. Will you be good enough--"

"One moment, let me finish," said Angelescu, rising also, "will you not, at least, hear me out?"

Ragna stopped, but did not reseat herself, so both remained standing.

"I should make it the business of my life to give you happiness, to wipe from your memory all trace--" She made an impatient gesture. "Forgive my clumsiness! You will not consider it? To-night you are tired, you are worn out, perhaps you may think differently later. At least promise me that if you change your mind you will let me know--I shall come to you anywhere, at any time. Remember, I love you,--you need only to make the sign and I will come. And if there ever is anything I can do to help you, at any time,--if ever you are in trouble, remember that I am there."

"You are very kind," she said wearily, and again moved towards the door.

This time he made no effort to detain her, but giving her his arm, conducted her to the door of her own _palco_. She turned to take leave of him and gave him her hand which he raised to his lips.

"Thank you for your kindness, Count," she said, adding in a clear, hard voice: "And tell the Prince that I despise him for his message. Tell him that no proposition he might make would be accepted."

He saw that although her voice was hard, her eyes were bright with unshed tears,--another moment and he might have won his cause, or at least have broken down the barrier of ice she had built about herself,--but Ragna was afraid to trust herself further; she quickly entered the box, closing the door behind her.

"Poor child," he murmured, "poor, poor child!"

He returned to his box, the one that Mirko had engaged for the evening, and throwing on his greatcoat took his hat and hurried out.

It was drizzling but he did not call a cab; thrusting his hands into his pockets, he strode up the shining, wet street, his head sunk forward. It was true that he had loved Ragna ever since the trip on the _Norje_; her fair head had been ever before his eyes; shining like a lode star from afar, though he had had no thought of ever seeing her again. In his pocketbook he carried the little pencil sketch he had made of her, and her notes with the brief words of thanks for his New Year's cards. He was not a sentimental man, but his mind was of a rather dogged quality.

Ragna's girlish innocence and charm had made a profound impression on him, and that impression persisted with a curious tenacity; she had become his ideal woman, and stood to him for all that sisters might have been, all that he desired in the wife never to be his. To think of her now, hurt and hardened, her innocence trampled and crushed, her girlhood soiled beyond remedy, to think of her morally alone, stripped of the protection of maidenhood, her wounded and suspicious pride refusing the help of his strong arm, maddened him.

He entered the hotel and went straight to Mirko's room. The Prince was lying on a couch, smoking, the picture of lazy comfort; the contrast between his appearance and the visible wretchedness of the girl he had just left added fuel to the flame of Angelescu's indignation.

"Well, Otto, what did she say?"

"She refused, as I told you she would."

"Did she? Oh, well, she'll probably console herself," he growled.

Angelescu took a step forward, his brow drawn menacingly over his blazing eyes.

"Have you no shame?"

"My good Otto, what a question! Of course, I am overcome with shame! I am glad the girl had the spirit to go to the ball and amuse herself--"

"How dare you--"

"Don't excite yourself, Otto, I beg! Let us say, then, she went to the ball without amusing herself. She shows a fine, independent spirit too, in refusing--"

"I shall forget that you are my Prince presently, and then--"

"Don't, Otto, it would be so unwise! Now what else did she have to say?

Accused me all round, eh?"

"She said nothing of you except that she despised you."

"And then? I suppose you agreed with her?"

"I asked her to be my wife."

"And she jumped at the chance?"

"She refused."

"By Jove! Refused your n.o.ble offer?"

Angelescu's face was livid, a muscle worked in his thin cheeks, his eyes looked like a lion's about to spring; his hand crept to his side where the hilt of his sabre should have been, but he was not in uniform; his short hair bristled on his head; with a supreme effort he held himself in check. His impulse was to throw himself on the other and silence his sarcastic tongue forever, but his military discipline stood him in good stead; the man before him was his Prince and therefore inviolable. Mirko watched him curiously, as though measuring the strength of his endurance. When he was able to regain control of his voice it was tense and hard; he jerked out his sentences as though each one represented a struggle.