often alert like a wild animal's, about to be attacked; only she had
trained herself generally to keep the lids lowered.

"What are the terms?" she asked.

And as she spoke Francis Markrute thought of the black panther in the
Zoo, which he was so fond of going to watch on Sunday mornings, she
reminded him so of the beast at the moment.

He had been constrained up to this, but now, the question being one of
business, all his natural ease of manner returned, and he sat down
opposite her and blew rings of smoke from his cigar.

"The terms are that the boy Mirko, your half-brother, shall be provided
for for life. He shall live with decent people, and have his talent
properly cultivated--"

He stopped abruptly and remained silent.

Countess Shulski clasped her hands convulsively in her lap, and with all
the pride and control of her voice there was a note of anguish, too,
which would have touched any heart but one so firmly guarded as Francis
Markrute's.

"Ah, God!" she said so low that he could only just hear her, "I have
paid the price of my body and soul once for them. It is too much to ask
it of me a second time--"

"That is as you please," said the financier.