obey me. Remember the
Shlangenberg. I ask you to be obedient. If necessary, I shall even BID
you be obedient.--Your own----POLINA.

"P.S.--If so be that you still bear a grudge against me for what
happened last night, pray forgive me."

Everything, to my eyes, seemed to change as I read these words. My lips
grew pale, and I began to tremble. Meanwhile, the cursed Frenchman was
eyeing me discreetly and askance, as though he wished to avoid
witnessing my confusion. It would have been better if he had laughed
outright.

"Very well," I said, "you can tell Mlle. not to disturb herself. But,"
I added sharply, "I would also ask you why you have been so long in
handing me this note? Instead of chattering about trifles, you ought to
have delivered me the missive at once--if you have really come
commissioned as you say."

"Well, pardon some natural haste on my part, for the situation is so
strange. I wished first to gain some personal knowledge of your
intentions; and, moreover, I did not know the contents of the note, and
thought that it could be given you at any time."

"I understand," I replied. "So you were ordered to hand me the note
only in the last resort, and if you could not otherwise appease me? Is
it not so? Speak out, Monsieur de Griers."

"Perhaps," said he, assuming a look of great forbearance, but gazing at
me in a meaning way.

I reached for my hat; whereupon he nodded, and went out. Yet on his
lips I fancied that I could see a mocking smile. How could it have been
otherwise?

"You and I are to have a reckoning later, Master Frenchman," I muttered
as I descended the stairs. "Yes, we will measure our strength
together." Yet my thoughts were all in confusion, for again something
seemed to have struck me dizzy. Presently the air revived me a little,
and, a couple of minutes later, my brain had sufficiently cleared to
enable two ideas in particular to stand out in it. Firstly, I asked
myself, which of the absurd, boyish, and extravagant threats which I
had uttered at random last night had made everybody so alarmed?
Secondly, what was the influence which this Frenchman appeared to
exercise over Polina? He had but to give the word, and at once she did
as he desired--at once she wrote me a note to beg of me to forbear! Of
course, the relations between the pair had, from the first, been a
riddle to me--they had been so ever since I had first made their
acquaintance. But of late I had remarked in her a stron