,
that she might still be successful in reaching the ear of the Duchess
before the royal train reached Sarajevo, there was an appeal in the
hazard of her venture with Captain Goritz. He was a clever man and a
dangerous one, who, to gain his ends, whatever they were, would not
hesitate to stoop to means beneath the dignity of honorable manhood--an
intriguer, a master craftsman in the secret and recondite, a perverted
gentleman, trained in a school which eliminated compassion, sentiment
and all other human attributes in the attainment of its object and the
consummation of its plans. And yet Marishka did not fear Captain Goritz.
There is a kind of feminine courage which no man can understand, that is
not physical nor even mental, born perhaps of that mysterious relation
which modern philosophy calls sex antagonism--a spiritual hardihood
which deals in the metaphysics of emotion and pays no tribute to any
form of materiality. Captain Goritz, whatever his quality, to Marishka
was merely a man. And whatever the forces at his command, her promise,
the half uttered threat as to her fate--which she had refused to take
seriously--she was aware that she was not defenseless. The elaborateness
of the Ambassador's manner, the graces of Graf von Mendel, and Captain
Goritz's now covert glances advised her that she was still armed with
her woman's weapons. Marishka was young, but her two years in the life
of the gayest court in Europe had sharpened her perceptions amazingly,
but she knew that if beauty is a woman's letter of credit worth its face
value with a man, it can also be a dangerous liability. Captain Goritz
differed from the gay idlers of the Viennese Court. The signs of
interest he had given her were slight,--a courtesy perhaps a trifle too
studied, a lingering glance of his curiously penetrating eyes which
might even have been impelled by professional curiosity, a
thoughtfulness for her comfort which might have been any woman's due,
and yet Marishka did not despair.

They reached the railway station uneventfully, where she learned that
men from the Embassy had followed on bicycles as a matter of precaution,
and the travelers found their compartment and were safely installed. She
sank into her place silently and looked out of the window into the blur
of moving lights as Vienna was left behind them. Upon the seat opposite
her sat the newly created officer of the Fifteenth Army Corps, Ober
Lieutenant Carl von Arnstorf, looking r