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"Pardon before punishing the other!" exclaimed the Prince, angrily. The other! Yanski Varhely instinctively clinched his fist, thinking, with rage, of that package of letters which he had held in his hands, and which he might have destroyed if he had known. It was true: how was pardon possible while Menko lived?
She rang, and said to the domestic who answered the bell: "Show Count Menko into the little salon." "We shall see what he will dare," muttered the Tzigana, glancing at the mirror as if to see whether she appeared to tremble before danger and an enemy.
"Pardon before punishing the other!" exclaimed the Prince, angrily. The other! Yanski Varhely instinctively clinched his fist, thinking, with rage, of that package of letters which he had held in his hands, and which he might have destroyed if he had known. It was true: how was pardon possible while Menko lived?
Menko remained but a few moments, evidently embarrassed at his reception; and after his departure, Zilah, who had noticed the Tzigana's coldness, asked her if she knew his friend. "Very well," she said, in a peculiar tone. "It would be difficult to imagine so from the way in which you received him," said Andras, laughing. "Poor Michel! Have you any reason to be angry with him?" "None."
Menko, with his twisted moustache, his pretty smile and his delicate profile, was there, behind that door. A red streak of light from the salon where Marsa was showed beneath the door, which the Prince longed to burst open with his foot. With anger and bitterness filling his heart, he felt capable of entering there, and striking savagely, madly, at his rival.
Oh! we are no longer savages, Baroness, believe me. If you want ignorant barbarians, you must seek the Chinese." The little Japanese was proud of appearing so profoundly learned in European affairs, and his gimlet eyes sought an approving glance from Paul Jacquemin or Michel Menko; but the Hungarian was neither listening to nor thinking of Yamada.
"There," he said, "that is all I had to tell you, my dear Menko. Now, 'au revoir', or rather, good-by; for, as I said before, I shall probably never see you again." "And why, pray?" "Oh! I don't know; it is an idea of mine. And then, my beloved Russia is such a strange country. Death comes quickly there." He had still upon his lips that inexplicable smile, jesting and sad at once.
It was that past, that terrible past, which Michel Menko had dared to come and speak of to the Tzigana. At first, she had grown crimson with anger, as if at an insult; now, by a sudden opposite sentiment, as she listened to him recalling those days, she felt an impression of deadly pain as if an old wound had been reopened. Was it true that all this had ever existed? Was it possible, even?
He stopped short, as if he feared that he had already said too much. "Adieu, my dear Menko." The Hungarian detained him with a gesture, saying, with a tremble in his voice: "Labanoff! You have found me when a crisis in my life is also impending. I am about, like yourself, to commit a great folly; a different one from yours, no doubt.
"There is, I am certain," he continued in the same calm, slow voice, "there is within this envelope some lie, some plot. I will not even know what it is. I will not ask you a single question, and I will throw these letters, unread, into the fire; but swear to me, that, whatever this Menko, or any other, may write to me, whatever any one may say, is an infamy and a calumny. Swear that, Marsa."
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