ent all hesitation, I venture to
propose the order should be in your hand throughout.'

'You are right,' she replied.

He laid a form before her, and she wrote the order in a clear hand, and
re-read it. Suddenly a cruel smile came on her face. 'I had forgotten
his puppet,' said she. 'They will keep each other company.' And she
interlined and initiated the condemnation of Doctor Gotthold.

'Your Highness has more memory than your servant,' said the Baron; and
then he, in his turn, carefully perused the fateful paper. 'Good!' said
he.

'You will appear in the drawing-room, Baron?' she asked.

'I thought it better,' said he, 'to avoid the possibility of a public
affront. Anything that shook my credit might hamper us in the immediate
future.'

'You are right,' she said; and she held out her hand as to an old friend
and equal.

CHAPTER IX--THE PRICE OF THE RIVER FARM; IN WHICH VAINGLORY GOES BEFORE A
FALL

The pistol had been practically fired. Under ordinary circumstances the
scene at the council table would have entirely exhausted Otto's store
both of energy and anger; he would have begun to examine and condemn his
conduct, have remembered all that was true, forgotten all that was unjust
in Seraphina's onslaught; and by half an hour after would have fallen
into that state of mind in which a Catholic flees to the confessional and
a sot takes refuge with the bottle. Two matters of detail preserved his
spirits. For, first, he had still an infinity of business to transact;
and to transact business, for a man of Otto's neglectful and
procrastinating habits, is the best anodyne for conscience. All
afternoon he was hard at it with the Chancellor, reading, dictating,
signing, and despatching papers; and this kept him in a glow of
self-approval. But, secondly, his vanity was still alarmed; he had
failed to get the money; to-morrow before noon he would have to
disappoint old Killian; and in the eyes of that family which counted him
so little, and to which he had sought to play the part of the heroic
comforter, he must sink lower than at first. To a man of Otto's temper,
this was death. He could not accept the situation. And even as he
worked, and worked wisely and well, over the hated details of his
principality, he was secretly maturing a plan by which to turn the
situation. It was a scheme as pleasing to the man as it was
dishonourable in the prince; in which his frivolous nature found and took
veng