“Then I will force you to obedience.”

Etta raised her delicate eyebrows insolently.

“Ah!”

“Yes,” said De Chauxville, with suppressed anger; “I will force you to obey me.”

The princess looked at him with her little mocking smile.  She raised one hand to her head with a reflective air, as if a hair-pin were of greater importance than his words.  She had dressed herself rather carefully for this interview.  She never for a moment overlooked the fact that she was a woman, and beautiful.  She did not allow him to forget it either.

Her mood of outraged virtue was now suddenly thrown into the background by a phase of open coquetry.  Beneath her eyelids she watched for the effect of her pretty, provoking attitude on the man who loved her.  She was on her own territory at this work, playing her own game; and she was more alarmed by De Chauxville’s imperturbability than by any thing he had said.

“You have a strange way of proving the truth of your own statements.”

“What statements?”

She gave a little laugh.  Her attitude, her glance, the cunning display of a perfect figure, the laugh, the whole woman, was the incarnation of practised coquetry.  She did not admit, even to herself, that she was afraid of De Chauxville.  But she was playing her best cards, in her best manner.  She had never known them fail.

Claude de Chauxville was a little white about the lips.  His eyelids flickered, but by an effort he controlled himself, and she did not see the light in his eyes for which she looked.

“If you mean,” he said coldly, “the statement that I made to you before you were married—­namely, that I love you—­I am quite content to leave the proof till the future.  I know what I am about, madame.”

He took his watch from his pocket and consulted it.

“I must go in five minutes,” he said.  “I have a few instructions to give you, to which I must beg your careful attention.”

He looked up, meeting Etta’s somewhat sullen gaze with a smile of triumph.

“It is essential,” he went on, “that I be invited to Osterno.  I do not want to stay there long; indeed, I do not care to.  But I must see the place.  I dare say you can compass the invitation, madame?”

“It will be difficult.”

“And therefore worthy of your endeavor.  I have the greatest regard for your diplomatic skill.  I leave the matter in your hands, princess.”

Etta shrugged her shoulders and looked past him out of the window.  De Chauxville was considering her face carefully.

“Another point to be remembered,” he went on, “is your husband’s daily life at Osterno.  The prince is not above suspicion; the authorities are watching him.  He is suspected of propagating revolutionary ideas among the peasantry.  I should like you to find out as much as you can.  Perhaps you know already.  Perhaps he has told you, princess.  I know that beautiful face!  He has told you!  Good!  Does he take an interest in the peasants?”