The old man turned to the arm-chair silhouetted against the gathering twilight which showed through a high window. "My darling," he said, in deeply moved tones, "how long we've had to wait to hear it again! Aren't you happy?"
Paul's glance had instinctively followed the old man's towards the arm-chair which he was so tenderly addressing, and there, with his own eyes, Paul saw—Aunt Verona!
Not the Aunt Verona he had known, but the Mademoiselle Windell who had stirred imaginations and captured hearts in Munich and Vienna, young and handsome, her dark hair smoothed over her ears, her figure lost in folds of silk.
He started up, as if in a trance, old recollections and recent gleanings of fact darting through his mind, while the image slowly vanished and he saw nothing but the vacant chair.
He turned towards the old man, awe-struck and dumb. Then through his dry throat came the words: "Dann sind Sie der Prinz Heinrich!"
He was thinking aloud, having been rendered incautious by fatigue and the overwhelming revelation. Already the words had wrought their havoc, for the tender, tearful old gentleman had been transformed. Paul, holding to the piano for support, found himself face to face with a fiend, the personification of insane terror, suspicion and guile. He thought of calling out, but could make no sound. He could only wait and stare through the twilight at a pair of protruding blue eyes.
Instinctively Paul drew back, a move which kindled a baleful glint in the eyes. In an unearthly silence they stood watching each other, and Paul felt himself sway. Before he could collect his forces a massive object whirred past his head, crashing on the keyboard of the piano with a hideous clamour.
