Near by he paused, alertly poised, prepared to spring.  The slotted black eyes glimmered malignantly.  His lips drew back in mockery from his teeth.  His hands were hidden in the pockets of his dinner-coat; but she could guess how they were held, like claws, in that concealment, claws itching for her throat.  She dared not stir lest she feel them there, digging deep into her soft white flesh.

Witless, in the extremity of her terror, she stammered:  “What do you want?”

A nod indicated the picture that lay between them, at their feet.

“My errand,” the man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, “is much the same as yours—­quite naturally—­but more fortunate; for I shall get not only what I came for, but something more.”

“What—?”

“The opportunity to plead with you, face to face.  I think you will hardly refuse to listen to me now.”

“How—­how did you get in?”

“Oh, secretly!  By the window, if you must know; but quite unseen.  You see, I had no invitation.”

“I never thought you had—­”

“Nor did I think you had—­till now.”

Puzzled, she faltered:  “I don’t understand—­”

“Surely you don’t wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?”

That stung her pride.  She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, confronting him bravely.

“What is it to me, what you choose to think?”

“I refuse to think that of you.  My reason will not let me believe it.”

She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled:  “Oh, your reason—!”

“It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited.”  He was rapidly losing grip on his temper.  “Oh, it’s plain enough!  I was a fool not to understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped with proof of your liaison with this Lanyard!”

She said in mild expostulation:  “But you are quite mad.”

“Perhaps—­but not so as to be blind to the truth.  You had him there this afternoon to bid that picture in for you if your own means failed.  Why else should the man, who knows pictures as I know you, pay twenty thousand guineas for a footling copy of a Corot that wouldn’t deceive a—­a Royal Academician!  Yes:  he bid it in for you—­the sorry fool!—­bought with his own money the evidence of your infatuation for his predecessor in your affections—­and expects you here to-night to receive it from him and—­pay him his price!  Ah, don’t try to deny it!”

He growled like a very animal, beside himself.  “Why else should you be admitted to these rooms without question in his absence?”

Without visible resentment, the Princess Sofia nodded thoughtfully into those distorted features.

“Yes,” she commented:  “quite, quite mad.”

As if she had offered without warning to strike him, Victor recoiled and for an instant stood gibbering.  And she took advantage of this moment in one lithe bound to put the table between them.