“None, Mr. Breitmann, none.”

“Is there another?” his throat swelling.  But before she could answer:  “Pardon me; I did not mean that.  I have no right to ask such a question.”

“And I should not have answered it to any but my father, Mr. Breitmann.”  She extended her hand.  “Let us forget that you have spoken.  I should like you for a friend.”

Without a word he took the hand and kissed it.  He made no effort to hold it, and it slipped from his clasp easily.

“Goodnight.”

“Good night.”  And he never lost sight of her till she entered the salon-cabin.  He saw a star fall out of nothing into nothing.  She was sorry!  The moment brewed a thousand wild suggestions.  To abduct her, to carry her away into the mountains, to cast his dream to the four winds, to take her in spite of herself.  He laid his hand on the teak railing, wondering at the sudden wracking pain, a pain which unlinked coherent thought and left his mind stagnant and inert.  For the first time he realized that his pain was a recurrence of former ones similar.  Why?  He did not know.  He only remembered that he had had the pain at the back of his head and that it was generally followed by a burning fury, a rage to rend and destroy things.  What was the matter?

The damp rail was cool and refreshing, and after a spell the pain diminished.  He shook himself free and stood straight, his jaws hard and his eyes, absorbing what light there was from the stars, chatoyant.  Sorry!  So be it.  To have humbled himself before this American girl and to be snubbed for his pains!  But, patience!  Two million francs and his friends awaiting the word from him.  She was sorry!  He laughed, and the laughter was not unlike that which a few nights gone had startled the ears of the other woman to whom he had once appealed in passionate tones and not without success.

“Karl!”

The sight of Hildegarde at this moment neither angered nor pleased him.  He permitted her hand to lay upon his arm.

“My head aches,” he said, as if replying to the unspoken question in her eyes.

“Karl, why not give it up?” she pleaded.

“Give it up?  What! when I have come this far, when I have gone through what I have?  Oh, no!  Do not think so little of me as that.”

“But it is a dream!”

He shook off her hand angrily.  “If there is to be any reckoning I shall pay, never fear.  But it will not, shall not fail!”

She would have liked to weep for him.  “I would gladly give you my eyes, Karl, if you might see it all as I see it.  Ruin, ruin!  Can you touch this money without violence?  Ah, my God, what has blinded you to the real issues?”

“I have not asked you to share the difficulties.”

“No.  You have not been that kind to me.”

To-night there were no places in his armor for any sentiment but his own.  “I want nothing but revenge.”