Pain and anger struggled in his face.  He was suffering, without a doubt, but for a moment it seemed as though the anger would predominate.  His great shoulders heaved, his hands were clenched until the signet ring on his left finger cut into the flesh, his eyes were like glittering points of fire.

“It is the old dream concerning Paul?” he demanded.

“It has nothing to do with Paul,” she assured him.  “Concerning him I will admit that I have had my weak moments.  I think that those have passed.  It was such a wonderful dream,” she went on reflectively, “the dream of ruling the mightiest nation in the world, a nation that even now, after many years of travail, is only just finding its way through to the light.  It seemed such a small thing that stood in the way.  Since then I have met Paul’s wife.  She does not understand, but at least she loves.”

“She is a poor fool, no helpmate for any man,” Immelan declared.  “Yet it is not his cause I plead, but mine.  I, too, can minister to your ambitions.  Be my wife, and I swear to you that before five years have passed I will be President of the German Republic.  Germany is no strange country to you,” he went on passionately.  “It is you who have helped in the great rapprochement.  At times when Paul has been difficult, you have smoothed the way.  I would not speak against your country, I would not speak against anything which lies close to your heart, but let me tell you that when the day of purification comes, the day when God gives us leave to pour out the vials of vengeance, there will be no prouder, no more glorious people than ours.  Our triumph will be yours, Naida.  You yourself will help to cement the great alliance of these years.”

She shook her head.

“I am a woman,” she said simply.  “Incidentally, I am a politician and something of an altruist, but when it comes to marriage, I am a woman.  I do not love you, Oscar, and I will not marry you.”

There was a darker shade upon his face now.  Unconsciously he had drawn a little nearer to her.

“Listen,” he begged; “it is perhaps possible that I have not been mistaken—­that a certain change has crept up in you even within the last few days?  Tell me, is there any one else who has found his way into your heart?  No, I will not say heart!  It could not be your heart in so short a time.  Into your fancy?  Is there any one else, Naida, of whom you are thinking?”

“That is my concern, Oscar, and mine only,” she answered haughtily.

A weaker woman he would have bullied.  His veins were filled with anger.  His tongue ached to spend itself.  Naida’s bearing cowed him.  She remained a dominating figure.  The unnatural restraint imposed upon himself, however, made his voice sound hard and unfamiliar.  There were little patches of white around his mouth; his teeth showed, when he spoke, more than usual.

“If there were any one else,” he declared, “and that some one else should chance to be an Englishman, I would find a new hell for him.”