“I have never disappointed you yet, Miss Thorne,” he remarked as if it were an explanation.  “I shall not now.”

She turned to the prince.

“Your Highness, I think it needless to argue further,” she said.  “We have no choice in the matter; there is only one course—­destroy the compact.”

“No!” was the curt answer.

“I believe I know Mr. Grimm better than you do,” she argued.  “You think he will weaken; I know he will not.  I am not arguing for him, nor for myself; I am arguing against the frightful loss that will come here in this room if the compact is not destroyed.”

[Illustration:  “You think he will weaken; I know he will not.”]

“It’s absurd to let one man stand in the way,” declared the prince angrily.

“It might not be an impertinent question, your Highness,” commented Mr. Grimm, “for me to ask how you are going to prevent one man standing in the way?”

A quick change came over Miss Thorne’s face.  The eyes hardened, the lips were set, and lines Mr. Grimm had never seen appeared about the mouth.  Here, in a flash, the cloak of dissimulation was cast aside, and the woman stood forth, this keen, brilliant, determined woman who did things.

“The compact will be destroyed,” she said.

“No,” declared the prince.

“It must be destroyed.”

“Must?  Must? Do you say must to me?”

“Yes, must,” she repeated steadily.

“And by what authority, please, do—­”

“By that authority!” She drew a tiny, filigreed gold box from her bosom and cast it upon the table; the prince stared at it.  “In the name of your sovereign—­must!” she said again.

The prince turned away and began pacing, back and forth across the room with the parchment crumpled in his hand.  For a minute or more Isabel stood watching him.

“Thirteen minutes!” Mr. Grimm announced coldly.

And now broke out an excited chatter, a babel of French, English, Italian, Spanish; those masked and cowled ones who had held silence for so long all began talking at once.  One of them snatched at the crumpled compact in the prince’s hand, while all crowded around him arguing.  Mr. Grimm sat perfectly still with the revolver barrel resting on his knees.

“Eleven minutes!” he announced again.

Suddenly the prince turned violently on Miss Thorne with rage-distorted face.

“Do you know what it means to you if I do as you say?” he demanded savagely.  “It means you will be branded as traitor, that your name, your property—­”

“If you will pardon me, your Highness,” she interrupted, “the power that I have used was given to me to use; I have used it.  It is a matter to be settled between me and my government, and as far as it affects my person is of no consequence now.  You will destroy the compact.”

“Nine minutes!” said Mr. Grimm monotonously.