“Lead her back to ze train and make her go to
London!” pleaded the Baron earnestly.

“You stick to it, you don’t know her?” asked Mr. Maddison shrewdly.

“No, no, I do not!”

“Is her name Lady Grillyer?”

“Not more zan it is mine!”

“Rudolph!” gasped the Countess inarticulately. 
“He is—­he was my son!”

“Stoff and nonsense!” roared the Baron.  “Remove her!—­I am tired.”

“Well,” said Mr. Maddison, “I guess I don’t much believe either of you; but whether you know each other or not, you make such a remarkably fine couple that I reckon you’d better get acquainted now.  Come, Ri.”

And before either Countess or Baron could interpose, their captors had slipped out, the key was turned, and they were left to the dual enjoyment of the antique apartment.

“Teufel!” shouted the Baron, kicking the door frantically.  “Open him, open him!  I vill pay you a hondred pound!  Goddam!  Open!”

But only the gasps of the Countess answered him.

It is generally conceded that if you want to see the full depths of brutality latent in man, you must thoroughly frighten him first.  This condition the Countess of Grillyer had exactly succeeded in fulfilling, with the consequence that the Baron, hitherto the most complacent and amiable of sons-in-law, seemed ambitious of rivalling the Turk.  When he perceived that no answer to his appeals was forthcoming, dark despair for a moment overcame him.  Then the fiendishly ingenious idea struck him—­might not a woman’s screams accomplish what his own lungs were unable to effect?  Turning an inflamed and frowning countenance upon the lady who had intrusted her daughter’s happiness to his hands, he addressed her in a deep hissing voice—­

“Shcream, shcream, voman!  Shcream loudly, or I vill knock you!”

But the Countess was made of stern stuff.  Outraged and frightened though she was, she yet retorted huskily—­

“I will not scream, Rudolph!  I—­I demand an explanation first!”

Executing a step of the sword-dance within a yard of her, he reiterated

“Shcream so zat zey may come back!”

She blinked, but held her ground.

“I insist upon knowing what you mean, Rudolph!  I insist upon your telling me!  What are you doing here in that preposterous kilt?”

The Baron’s wits brightened with the acuteness of the emergency.

“Ha!” he cried, “I vill take my kilt off—­take him off before your eyes this instant if you do not shcream!”

But she merely closed her eyes.

“If you dare!  If you dare, Rudolph, I shall inform your Emperor!  And I will not look!  I cannot see you!”

Whether in deference to imperial prejudices, or because a kiltless man would be thrown away upon a lady who refused to look at him, the Baron regretfully desisted from this project.  At his wits’ end, he besought her—­