"What the devil
do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that this foreign adventurer, Koenigsmark, and Sophia grow
too intimate."
"Sophia!" Thick eyebrows were raised until they almost met the
line of his ponderous peruke. His face broke into malevolent
creases expressive of contempt.
"That white-faced ninny! Bah!" Her very virtue was matter for
his scorn.
"It is these white-faced ninnies can be most sly," replied the
Countess, out of her worldly wisdom. "Listen a moment now." And
she related, with interest rather than discount, you may be sure,
what she had witnessed that afternoon.
The malevolence deepened in his face. He had never loved Sophia,
and he felt none the kinder towards her for her recent trip to
Zell. Then, too, being a libertine, and the father of a
libertine, it logically followed that unchastity in his women-
folk was in his eyes the unpardonable sin.
He heaved himself out of his deep chair. "How far has this
gone?" he demanded.
Prudence restrained the Countess from any over-statement that
might afterwards be disproved. Besides, there was not the need,
if she could trust her senses. Patience and vigilance would
presently afford her all the evidence required to damn the pair.
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