Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
Marsa should be the sole witness of the duel, and the blood of the Prince or of Menko should spatter her face a crimson stain upon her pale cheek should be her punishment. Early in the evening Andras left the hotel, after slipping into the pocket of his overcoat a pair of loaded pistols: one of them he would cast at Menko's feet. It was not assassination he wished, but justice.
Zilah scarcely noticed him, for he uttered a veritable cry of delight as he perceived behind the reporter a young man whom he had not expected. "Menko! My dear Michel!" he exclaimed, stretching out both hands to the newcomer, who advanced, excessively pale. "By what happy chance do I see you, my dear boy?" "I heard in London that you were to give this fete.
If Count Josef Ladany rescued Menko from the police of the Czar, and, by setting him free, delivered him to him, Varhely, all was well. By entering the ministry, Ladany would thus be at least useful for something. The negotiations with Warsaw, however, detained Yanski Varhely at Vienna longer than he wished.
This salon communicated with a much larger one, where General Vogotzine usually took his siesta, and which Marsa abandoned to him, preferring the little room, the windows of which, framed in ivy, looked out upon the garden, with the forest in the distance. Michel Menko was well acquainted with this little salon, where he had more than once seen Marsa seated at the piano playing her favorite airs.
There were days when Menko did not value his life at a penny, and when he asked himself seriously if suicide were not the simplest means to reach the end; and again, at the least ray of sunshine, he became sanguine and hopeful to excess.
With a sudden tightening of the muscles he repulsed the Danish hounds, which rolled over writhing on the ground, and then, with formidable baying, returned more furiously still to the charge. Michel Menko had no weapon. With a knife he could have defended himself, and slit the bellies of the maddened animals; but he had nothing! Was he to be forced, then, to fly, pursued like a fox or a deer?
She uttered these words so resolutely, haughtily, almost disdainfully, and accompanied them with such a flash from her beautiful eyes that Menko instinctively bowed his head, murmuring: "Forgive me!" But he drove his nails into the palm of his clenched hand as he saw her leave that part of the boat, and retire as far from him as she could, as if his presence were an insult to her.
Very rarely, his real frank, true nature would come to the fore, and he would say: "After all, are the cowardice of one man, and the lie of one woman, to be considered the crime of entire humanity?" Why should he curse, he would think, other beings than Marsa and Menko? He had no right to hate any one else; he had no enemy that he knew of, and he was honored in Paris, his new country. No enemy?
Marsa, who saw Vogotzine pass out, let him go, only too willing to have him at a distance during her interview with Michel Menko; and then she boldly entered the little salon, where the Count, who had heard her approach, was standing erect as if expecting some attack.
Varhely and Valla crossed the garden, entered the house, and found themselves face to face with Menko. Varhely would scarcely have recognized him. The former graceful, elegant young man had suddenly aged: his hair was thin and gray upon the temples, and, instead of the carefully trained moustache of the embassy attache, a full beard now covered his emaciated cheeks.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking