"Herr Renwick is no Serbian spy, Captain Goritz," she said steadily.
"Oh, you do not believe me. Very well. You will discover it for yourself."
He looked at her with every mark of admiration, but his reply did not answer her question.
"Herr Renwick is indeed fortunate in having so loyal a friend--even though, as you say, there is nothing between you in common. I envy him the possession. I hope that he may better deserve it."
She smiled but did not speak for a moment and then, "Why is it that you so dislike a man whom you do not know--whom you--you have never seen?"
Goritz bent forward toward her, his voice lowered while his strange dark eyes gazed full into hers:
"Need I tell you?" he whispered. "You have thought me cruel, because I have done my duty, heartless--cold--a mere piece of official machinery which could balk at nothing--even the destruction of a woman's happiness--because my allegiance to my country was greater than any personal consideration. But I am not insensible to the appeals of gentleness, not blind to beauty nor deaf to music, Countess Strahni, as you have thought. Beneath the exterior which may have seemed forbidding to you, I am only human. Last night I took advantage of your weariness and weakness in telling you, with cruel bluntness, of Herr Renwick's relations with the Serbian government. I learned what you have labored to conceal--that you care for him--that you care for one who----"
"It is not true," she broke in calmly. "I do not care for Herr Renwick."
"It would delight me to believe you," he went on with a shake of the head, "but I cannot. It has been very painful to me to see you suffer, for whatever you have done in a mistaken sense of loyalty to your country, nothing can alter the fact of your innocence, your virtue, and your dependence upon my kindness in a most trying situation. I have told you the facts about Herr Renwick because I have believed it my duty, to you and to Austria. If I have hurt you, Countess Strahni," he finished gently, "I pray that you will forgive me."
Marishka was silent, now looking straight before her down the mountain road which they were descending slowly. The voice of Captain Goritz had a sonorous quality which could not have been unpleasant to the ears of any woman. She listened to it soberly, trying to detect the tinkle of the spurious, but she was forced to admit that beyond and behind the mere phrases which might in themselves mean nothing, there was a depth of earnestness that might have proved bewildering to one less versed in the ways of the world than herself. His eyes, singularly clear and luminous, dominated and held her judgment of him in abeyance. For the moment she was able to forget her terrors of the night before, his enmity for Hugh Renwick, and the threat he had hung over her freedom. She did not dare to trust him. Too much still hung in the balance of her favor or disfavor. And yet she was forced to admit the constraint of his fervor, his kindness and courteous consideration. A woman forgives much to those who acknowledge without question the scepter of her femininity.