THE UNKNOWN MR. KENT
They saluted and obeyed with convincing alacrity.
"Provarsk," said Kent, "I'm very sorry! I didn't wish that done to you."
"That's all right, Rhodes, or Kent, if you prefer it. It's nothing to what I wanted to do to you," gamely retorted the baron.
"Or nothing compared to what Ivan wanted to do to you," remarked Kent.
"Why didn't you let him finish it? In your place I should have done so," Provarsk asserted, without rancour, and clutching his shattered arm.
"Because," declared Kent, with quiet dignity, "I have punished you enough. You are finished as it is. Somehow, I'm sorry! You're a game man, Baron, and—I like them. I shall send for a surgeon."
"Oh, may as well put that off for a few minutes," the chancellor said, wincing with a physical pain that barely exposed itself in his level voice. "May as well tell me the worst."
"There's not much more to tell," Kent said, gently. "Only that I've beaten you past any chance of your coming back. By this time you are not even the chancellor, I think. I fancy Von Glutz, the loyal, has come back to his own. And you are broke. Broken like an empty egg shell!"
Provarsk shut his teeth, tried to get his arm to a less painful position, attempted a brave smile,
[261]
