serious, but her tone was sprightly--even flippant.

"It would be a matter of profound regret to me, Countess Strahni," he
said, with some dignity, "if any misfortune should happen to you while
under my charge."

"It is so nice of you to put it that way," she smiled at him. "Under
other conditions, you know, we might even have been friends."

"I would be deeply pained if you should consider me an enemy," he
replied.

"_Ach! leider!_" she sighed. "A prisoner can have no choice."

He made no reply to that and sank back into his favorite position with
arms folded, staring straight before him. This girl was too handsome to
quibble with. Her newly discovered cheerfulness disturbed him. He had
known in abundance women of courage, women of skill in dissimulation,
but he remembered that when they were both beautiful and clever it was
the part of wisdom to be upon one's guard.

Marishka glanced at Captain Goritz's well-shaped head in the seat beside
her. It was to be war between them--war! A thinking machine! Was he? She
smiled to herself. She knew that she had power. What handsome clever
woman does not know it? Men had desired her--a Russian duke, an Italian
prince. And an Austrian archduke even, braving the parental ire, had
wished to marry her, willing even to sacrifice his princely prerogatives
if she would have said the word. Hugh Renwick----She swallowed
bravely.... But the sense of her power over men gave her a new courage
to meet Captain Goritz with a smile upon her lips while she summoned in
secret all her feminine instinct to aid her in the unequal struggle, a
game needing both caution and daring, a game for high stakes--in which
perhaps no quarter would be given.

As they approached the environs of Vienna, the car now moved at a
reduced speed and boldly chose the main highroads. Twice they were
stopped and examined. This showed that all the machinery of the
telegraph was now in operation, but the touring car did not answer to
the given description and Captain Goritz's air of surprise and annoyance
was so genuine that there was little delay.

"Our friends of the Maehrische-Hoehe are fortunately still frightened or
else quite satisfied with the green limousine," he laughed. "We shall go
through, I think."

"Shall we be in time?" asked Marishka.

The German shrugged and looked at his watch. "We shall be in Vienna in
twenty minutes."

Marishka made no comment. As their journey neared its ending she
realized