removing his hat, composing his face to a nullity of
official expression, entered.

After the shadow of the hall and the staircase, the window blazed at
him. The Baron was at his little table, seated sideways in his chair,
toying with an ivory paper-knife, large against the light. Von Wetten
stood beside him, tall and very stiff, withdrawn into himself behind
his mask of Prussian officer and aristocrat; and in a low chair, back
to the door and facing the other two, Bettermann sat.

He screwed round awkwardly to see who entered, showing his thin face
and its scar, then turned again to the Baron, large and calm and
sufficient before him.

"I tell you," he said, resuming some talk that had been going on
before Herr Haase's arrival: "I tell you, the letter of the bargain
or nothing!"

The Baron had given to Herr Haase his usual welcome of a half smile,
satiric and not unkindly. He turned now to Bettermann.

"But certainly," he answered. He slapped the ivory paper-knife
against his palm. "I was not withdrawing from the bargain. I was
merely endeavoring to point out to you at the instance of my friend
here" a jerk of the elbow towards Von Wetten "the advantages of a
million marks, or several million marks, plus the cashiering of
Colonel von Specht from the army, over the personal satisfaction
which you have demanded for yourself. But since you insist."

Bettermann, doubled up in his low chair, broke in abruptly: "Yes, I
insist!"

The Baron smiled his elderly, temperate smile. "So be it," he said.
"Well, my good Haase, what have you to tell us?"

Herr Haase brought his heels together, dropped his thumbs to the
seams of his best trousers, threw up his chin, and barked:

"Your Excellency, I have seen the Herr Colonel Graf von Specht. He
died at ten minutes past eleven this morning."

His parade voice rang in the room; when it ceased the silence, for a
space of moments, was absolute. What broke it was the voice of Von
Wetten.

"Thank God!" it said, loudly and triumphantly.

The Baron swung round to him, but before he could speak Bettermann
gathered up the slack of his long limbs and rose from his chair. He
stood a moment, gaunt in his loose and worn clothes, impending over
the seated baron.

"So that was it! Well" He paused, surveying the pair of them, the old
man, the initiate and communicant of the inmost heart of the machine
through which his soul had gone like grain through a mill, and the
tall Prussian offi