"No, no; I couldn't do it. It would be too base."
"My dear Adelaide," replied Sophie, familiarly, and almost affectionately, "I hope you will forgive me if I suggest that the attitude you have taken up, dignified and virtuous as I admit it looks at first sight, is really a trifle absurd."
"Really, countess," replied Adelaide, frigidly, "if you are going to forget your manners, I think the conversation may as well end. You have sought to tempt me to an act of treachery, and because I refuse, you begin to forget your manners. You seem to have forgotten, also, that you have put it into my power to warn the viscount and his friends of the danger you have prepared for them."
This was, of course, a danger which Sophie had foreseen. It was a grave one; but she was accustomed to run risks, and she was ready for this one.
"My dear Adelaide," she replied, still with the most perfect good humour, "please don't get angry with me. We have always been very good friends, and I think this is the first time you have called me countess for years. Don't take the trouble to be formal any more, but just be sensible and listen. I am not tempting you at all. I am simply trying to help you against our common enemy, and I am asking you to help France and Russia in the great and good work of wresting the command of the world from these upstart Anglo-Saxons, and reducing them once for all to their proper place. You are not a friend to the Republic; neither am I, nor any of us, for the matter of that. But you are a Frenchwoman, who ought to be Queen of France, and, if all goes well with us, may be."
"What," exclaimed Adelaide, taken off her guard for a moment, "do you mean that, Sophie? Do you believe that Russia----"
"Would not rather have as an ally a monarchy--the old monarchy of France, ruled over by your most gracious majesty, than a republic, managed by a plebeian pack of stockjobbers and shopkeepers? Do you know why your lamented father the prince was such a welcome guest at the court of Petersburg?"
"Yes," replied Sophie, taking the venture; "I do know, and I can assure you that your majesty, when the day comes, will find no stronger partisan than I shall be. My father, too, is one of your most devoted adherents, though, of course, he can say nothing about it now, and, as you know, there are other personages far more exalted."
