In her heart she knew that these men and women were already thinking of her as a regicide.

It was settled--it was ordained.

At Spantz's right lounged Peter Brutus, a lawyer--formerly secretary to the Iron Count and now his sole representative among these people.

He was a dark-faced, snaky-eyed young man, with a mop of coarse black hair that hung ominously low over his high, receding forehead.

This man was the chosen villain among all the henchmen who came at the beck and call of the Iron Count.
Julius Spantz, the armourer's son, a placid young man of goodly physical proportions, sat next to Brutus, while down the table ranged others deep in the consideration of the world's gravest problems.