"If the terms are for the certain happiness of Mirko I consent," she
said.



CHAPTER IV


The four men--the two railway magnates, Francis Markrute, and Lord
Tancred--had all been waiting a quarter of an hour before the
drawing-room fire when the Countess Shulski sailed into the room. She
wore an evening gown of some thin, black, transparent, woolen stuff,
which clung around her with the peculiar grace her poorest clothes
acquired. Another woman would have looked pitifully shabby in such a
dress, but her distinction made it appear to at least three of the men
as the robe of a goddess. Francis Markrute was too annoyed at the delay
of her coming to admire anything; but even he, as he presented his
guests to her, could not help remarking that he had never seen her look
more wonderful, nor more contemptuously regal.

They had had rather a stormy scene in the library, half an hour before.
Her words had been few, but their displeasure had been unconcealed. She
would agree to the bare bargain, if so be this strange man were willing,
but she demanded to know the reason of his willingness.

And when she was told it was a business matter between the two men, and
that she would be given a large fortune, she expressed no more surprise
than a disdainful curl of the lips.

For her, all men were either brutes--or fools like poor Mimo.