Below the windows of a long, low, stone house, in its architecture remarkably like a fortified farm—below these deep-embrasured windows the river Oster mumbled softly. One of the windows was wide open, and with the voice of the water a wonderful music rolled out to mingle and lose itself in the hum of the pine-woods.
The room was a small one; beneath the artistic wall-paper one detected the outline of square-hewn stones. There were women’s things lying about; there were flowers in a bowl on a low, strong table. There were a few good engravings on the wall; deep-curtained windows, low chairs, a sofa, a fan. But it was not a womanly room. The music filling it, vibrating back from the grim stone walls, was not womanly music. It was more than manly. It was not earthly, but almost divine. It happened to be Grieg, with the halting beat of a disabled, perhaps a broken, heart in it, as that master’s music usually has.
The girl was alone in the room. The presence of any one would have silenced something that was throbbing at the back of the chords. Quite suddenly she stopped. She knew how to play the quaint last notes. She knew something that no master had ever taught her.
She swung round on the stool and faced the light. It was afternoon—an autumn afternoon in Russia—and the pink light made the very best of a face which was not beautiful at all, never could be beautiful—a face about which even the owner, a woman, could have no possible illusion. It was broad and powerful, with eyes too far apart, forehead too broad and low, jaw too heavy, mouth too determined. The eyes were almond-shaped, and slightly sloping downward and inward—deep, passionate blue eyes set in a Mongolian head. It was the face of a woman who could, morally speaking, make mincemeat of nine young men out of ten. But she could not have made one out of the number love her. For it has been decreed that women shall win love—except in some happy exceptions—by beauty only. The same unwritten law has it that a man’s appearance does not matter—a law much appreciated by some of us, and duly canonized by not a few.
The girl was evidently listening. She glanced at a little golden clock on the mantel-piece, and then at the open window. She rose—she was short, and somewhat broadly built—and went to the window.
“He will be back,” she said to herself, “in a few minutes now.”
She raised her hand to her forehead, and pressed back her hair with a little movement of impatience, expressive, perhaps, of a great suspense. She stood idly drumming on the window-sill for a few moments; then, with a quick little sigh, she went back to the piano. As she moved she gave a jerk of the head from time to time, as schoolgirls who have too much hair are wont to do. The reason of this nervous movement was a wondrous plait of gold reaching far below her waist. Catrina Lanovitch almost worshipped her own hair. She knew without any doubt that not one woman in ten thousand could rival her in this feminine glory—knew it as indubitably as she knew that she was plain. The latter fact she faced with an unflinching, cold conviction which was not feminine at all. She did not say that she was hideous, for the sake of hearing a contradiction or a series of saving clauses. She never spoke of it to any one. She had grown up with it, and as it was beyond doubt, so was it outside discussion. All her femininity seemed to be concentrated, all her vanity centred, on her hair. It was her one pride, perhaps her one hope. Women have been loved for their voices. Catrina’s voice was musical enough, but it was deep and strong. It was passionate, tender if she wished, fascinating; but it was not lovable. If the voice may win love, why not the hair?
Catrina despised all men but one—that one she worshipped. She lived night and day with one great desire, beside which heaven and hell were mere words. Neither the hope of the one nor the fear of the other in any way touched or affected her desire. She wanted to make Paul Alexis love her; and, womanlike, she clung to the one womanly charm that was hers—the wonderful golden hair. Pathetic, aye, pathetic—with a grin behind the pathos, as there ever is.
She sat down at the piano, and her strong, small hands tore the heart out of each wire. There are some people who get farther into a piano than others, making the wires speak as with a voice. Catrina Lanovitch had this trick. She only played a Russian people-song—a simple lay such as one may hear issuing from the door of any kabak on a summer evening. But she infused a true Russian soul into it—the soul that is cursed with a fatal power of dumb and patient endurance. She did not sway from side to side as do some people who lose themselves in the intoxication of music. But she sat quite upright, her sturdy, square shoulders motionless. Her strange eyes were fixed with the stillness of distant contemplation.
Suddenly she stopped and leaped to her feet. She did not go to the window, but stood listening beside the piano. The beat of a horse’s hoofs on the narrow road was distinctly audible, hollow and sodden as is the sound of a wooden road. It came nearer and nearer, and a certain unsteadiness indicated that the horse was tired.
“I thought he might have come,” she whispered, and she sat down breathlessly.
When the servant came into the room a few minutes later Catrina was at the piano.
“A letter, mademoiselle,” said the maid.
“Lay it on the table,” answered Catrina, without looking round. She was playing the closing bars of a nocturne.
She rose slowly, turned, and seized the letter as a starving man seizes food. There was something almost wolf-like in her eyes.
“Steinmetz,” she exclaimed, reading the address. “Steinmetz. Oh! why won’t he write to me?”
She tore open the letter, read it, and stood holding it in her hand, looking out over the trackless pine-woods with absorbed, speculative eyes. The sun had just set. The farthest ridge of pine-trees stood out like the teeth of a saw in black relief on the rosy sky. Catrina Lanovitch watched the rosiness fade into pearly gray.
“Madame the Countess awaits mademoiselle for tea,” said the maid’s voice suddenly, in the gloom of the door-way.
“I will come.”
The village of Thors—twenty miles farther down the river Oster, twenty miles nearer to the junction of that river with the Volga—was little more than a hamlet in the days of which we write. Some day, perhaps, the three hundred souls of Thors may increase and multiply—some day when Russia is attacked by the railway fever. For Thors is on the Chorno-Ziom—the belt of black and fertile soil that runs right across the vast empire.
Karl Steinmetz, a dogged watcher of the Wandering Jew—the deathless scoffer at our Lord’s agony, who shall never die, who shall leave cholera in his track wherever he may wander—Karl Steinmetz knew that the Oster was in itself a Wandering Jew. This river meandered through the lonesome country, bearing cholera germs within its waters. Whenever Osterno had cholera it sent it down the river to Thors, and so on to the Volga.
Thors lay groaning under the scourge, and the Countess Lanovitch shut herself within her stone walls, shivering with fear, begging her daughter to return to Petersburg.
It was nearly dark when Karl Steinmetz and the Moscow doctor rode into the little village, to find the starosta, a simple Russian farmer, awaiting them outside the kabak.
Steinmetz knew the man, and immediately took command of the situation with that unquestioned sense of authority which in Russia places the barin on much the same footing as that taken by the Anglo-Indian in our eastern empire.
“Now, starosta,” he said, “we have only an hour to spend in Thors. This is the Moscow doctor. If you listen to what he tells you, you will soon have no sickness in the village. The worst houses first—and quickly. You need not be afraid, but if you do not care to come in, you may stay outside.”
As they walked down the straggling village-street the Moscow doctor told the starosta in no measured terms, as was his wont, wherein lay the heart of the sickness. Here, as in Osterno, dirt and neglect were at the base of all the trouble. Here, as in the larger village, the houses were more like the abode of four-footed beasts than the dwellings of human beings.
The starosta prudently remained outside the first house to which he introduced the visitors. Paul went fearlessly in, while Steinmetz stood in the door-way, holding open the door.
As he was standing there he perceived a flickering light approaching him. The light was evidently that of an ordinary hand-lantern, and from the swinging motion it was easy to divine that it was being carried by some one who was walking quickly.
“Who is this?” asked Steinmetz.
“It is likely to be the Countess Catrina, Excellency.”
Steinmetz glanced back into the cottage, which was dark save for the light of a single petroleum lamp. Paul’s huge form could be dimly distinguished bending over a heap of humanity and foul clothing in a corner.
“Does she visit the cottages?” asked Steinmetz sharply.
“She does, God be with her! She has no fear. She is an angel. Without her we should all be dead.”
“She won’t visit this, if I can help it,” muttered Steinmetz.
The light flickered along the road toward them. In the course of a few minutes it fell on the stricken cottage, on the starosta standing in the road, on Steinmetz in the door-way.
“Herr Steinmetz, is that you?” asked a voice, deep and musical, in the darkness.
“Zum Befehl,” answered Steinmetz, without moving.
Catrina came up to him. She was clad in a long dark cloak, a dark hat, and wore no gloves. She brought with her a clean aromatic odor of disinfectants. She carried the lantern herself, while behind her walked a man-servant in livery, with a large basket in either hand.
“It is good of you,” she said, “to come to us in our need—also to persuade the good doctor to come with you.”
“It is not much that we can do,” answered Steinmetz, taking the small outstretched hand within his large soft grasp; “but that little you may always count upon.”
“I know,” she said gravely.
She looked up at him, expecting him to step aside and allow her to pass into the cottage; but Steinmetz stood quite still, looking down at her with his pleasant smile.
“And how is it with you?” he asked, speaking in German, as they always did together.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh!” she answered indifferently, “I am well, of course. I always am. I have the strength of a horse. Of course I have been troubled about these poor people. It has been terrible. They are worse than children. I cannot quite understand why God afflicts them so. They have never done any harm. They are not like the Jews. It seems unjust. I have been very busy, in my small way. My mother, you know, does not take much interest in things that are not clean.”
“Madame the Countess reads French novels and the fictional productions of some modern English ladies,” suggested Steinmetz quietly.
“Yes; but she objects to honest dirt,” said Catrina coldly. “May I go in?”
Steinmetz did not move.
“I think not. This Moscow man is eccentric. He likes to do good sub rosa. He prefers to be alone.”
Catrina tried to look into the cottage; but Karl Steinmetz, as we know, was fat, and filled up the whole door-way.
“I should like to thank him for coming to us, or, at least, to offer him hospitality. I suppose one cannot pay him.”
“No; one cannot pay him,” answered Steinmetz gravely.
There was a little pause. From the interior of the cottage came the murmured gratitude of the peasants, broken at times by a wail of agony—the wail of a man. It is not a pleasant sound to hear. Catrina heard it, and it twisted her plain, strong face in a sudden spasm of sympathy.
Again she made an impatient little movement.
“Let me go in,” she urged. “I may be able to help.”
Steinmetz shook his head.
“Better not!” he said. “Besides, your life is too precious to these poor people to run unnecessary risks.”
She gave a strange, bitter laugh.
“And what about you?” she said. “And Paul?”
“You never hear of Paul going into any of the cottages,” snapped Steinmetz sharply. “For me it is different. You have never heard that of Paul.”
“No,” she answered slowly; “and it is quite right. His life—it is different for him. How—how is Paul?”
“He is well, thank you.”
Steinmetz glanced down at her. She was looking across the plains beyond the boundless pine forests that lay between Thors and the Volga.
“Quite well,” he went on, kindly enough. “He hopes to ride over and pay his respects to the countess to-morrow or the next day.”
And the keen, kind eyes saw what they expected in the flickering light of the lamp.
At this moment Steinmetz was pushed aside from within, and a hulking young man staggered out into the road, propelled from behind with considerable vigor. After him came a shower of clothes and bedding.
“Pah!” exclaimed Steinmetz, spluttering. “Himmel! What filth! Be careful, Catrina!”
But Catrina had slipped past him. In an instant he had caught her by the wrist.
“Come back!” he cried. “You must not go in there!”
She was just over the threshold.
“You have some reason for keeping me out,” she returned, wriggling in his strong grasp. “I will—I will!”
With a twist she wrenched herself free and went into the dimly lighted room.
Almost immediately she gave a mocking laugh.
“Paul!” she said.
For a moment there was silence in the hovel, broken only by the wail of the dying man in the corner. Paul and Catrina faced each other—she white and suddenly breathless, he half frowning. But he did not meet her eyes.
“Paul,” she said again, with a lingering touch on the name. The sound of her voice, a rough sort of tenderness in her angry tone, made Steinmetz smile in his grim way, as a man may smile when in pain.
“Paul, what did you do this for? Why are you here? Oh, why are you in this wretched place?”
“Because you sent for me,” he answered quietly. “Come, let us go out. I have finished here. That man will die. There is nothing more to be done for him. You must not stay in here.”
She gave a short laugh as she followed him. He had to stoop low to pass through the door-way. Then he turned and held out his hand, for fear she should trip over the high threshold. She nodded her thanks, but refused the proffered assistance.
Steinmetz lingered behind to give some last instructions, leaving Paul and Catrina to walk on down the narrow street alone. The moon was just rising—a great yellow moon such as only Russia knows—the land of the silver night.
“How long have you been doing this?” asked Catrina suddenly. She did not look toward him, but straight in front of her.
“For some years now,” he replied simply.
He lingered. He was waiting for Steinmetz, who always rose to such emergencies, who understood secrets and how to secure them when they seemed already lost. He did not quite understand what was to be done with Catrina—how she was to be silenced. She had found him out with such startling rapidity that he felt disposed to admit her right to dictate her own terms. On a straight road this man was fearless and quick, but he had no taste or capacity for crooked ways.
Catrina walked on in silence. She was not looking at the matter from his point of view at all.
“Of course,” she said at length, “of course, Paul, I admire you for it immensely. It is just like you to go and do the thing quietly and say nothing about it; but—oh, you must go away from here. I—I—it is too horrible to think of your running such risks. Rather let them all die like flies than that. You mustn’t do it. You mustn’t.”
She spoke in English hurriedly, with a little break in her voice which he did not understand.
“With ordinary precautions the risk is very small,” he said practically.
“Yes. But do you take ordinary precautions? Are you sure you are all right now?”
She stopped. They were quite alone in the one silent street of the stricken village. She looked up into his face. Her hands were running over the breast of the tattered coat he wore. It was lamentably obvious, even to him, that she loved him. In her anxiety she either did not know what she was doing, or she did not care whether he knew or not. She merely gave sway to the maternal instinct which is in the love of all women. She felt his hands; she reached up and touched his face.
“Are you sure—are you sure you have not taken it?” she whispered.
He walked on, almost roughly.
“Oh, yes; quite,” he said.
“I will not allow you to go into any more houses in Thors. I cannot—I will not! Oh, Paul, you don’t know. If you do, I will tell them all who you are, and—and the Government will stop you.”
“What would be the good of that?” said Paul awkwardly. “Your father cared for his peasants, and was content to run risks for them. I suppose you care about them, too, as you go into their houses.”
“Yes; but—”
She paused, gave a strange little reckless laugh, and was silent. Heaven forbid that we should say that she wanted him to know that she loved him. Chivalry bids us believe that women guard the secret of their love inviolate from the world. But what was Catrina to do? Men are in the habit of forgetting that plain women are women at all. Surely some of them may be excused for reminding us at times that they also are capable of loving—that they also desire to be loved. Happy is the man who loves and is loved of a plain woman; for she will take her own lack of beauty into consideration, and give him more than most beautiful women have it in their power to give.
“Of course,” Catrina went on, with a sudden anger which surprised herself, “I cannot stop you from doing this at Osterno, though I think it is wicked; but I can prevent you from doing it here, and I certainly shall!”
Paul shrugged his shoulders.
“As you like,” he said. “I thought you cared more about the peasants.”
“I do not care a jot about the peasants,” she answered passionately, “as compared—It is you I am thinking about, not them. I think you are selfish, and cruel to your friends.”
“My friends have never shown that they are consumed with anxiety on my account.”
“That is mere prevarication. Leave that to Herr Steinmetz and such men, whose business it is; you don’t do it well. Your friends may feel a lot that they do not show.”
She spoke the words shortly and sharply. Surreptitious good is so rare, that when it is found out it very naturally gets mixed up with secret evil, and the perpetrator of the hidden good deed feels guilty of a crime. Paul was in this lamentable position, which he proceeded to further aggravate by seeking to excuse himself.
“I did it after mature consideration. I tried paying another man, but he shirked his work and showed the white feather; so Steinmetz and I concluded that there was nothing to be done but do our dirty work ourselves.”
“Which, being translated, means that you do it.”
“Pardon me. Steinmetz does his share.”
Catrina Lanovitch was essentially a woman, despite her somewhat masculine frame. She settled Karl Steinmetz’s account with a sniff of contempt.
“And that is why you have been so fond of Osterno the last two years?” she asked innocently.
“Yes,” he answered, falling into the trap.
Catrina winced. One does not wince the less because the pain is expected. The girl had the Slav instinct of self-martyrdom, which makes Russians so very different from the pleasure-loving nations of Europe.
“Only that?” she enquired.
Paul glanced down at her.
“Yes,” he answered quietly.
They walked on in silence for a few moments. Paul seemed tacitly to have given up the idea of visiting any more of the stricken cottages. They were going toward the long old house, which was called the castle more by courtesy than by right.
“How long are you going to stay in Osterno?” asked Catrina at length.
“About a fortnight; I cannot stay longer. I am going to be married.”
Catrina stopped dead. She stood for a moment looking at the ground with a sort of wonder in her eyes, not pleasant to see. It was the look of one who, having fallen from a great height, is not quite sure whether it means death or not. Then she walked on.
“I congratulate you,” she said. “I only hope she will make you happy. She is—beautiful, I suppose?”
“Yes,” answered Paul simply.
The girl nodded her head.
“What is her name?”
“Etta Sydney Bamborough.”
Catrina had evidently never heard the name before. It conveyed nothing to her. Womanlike, she went back to her first question.
“What is she like?”
Paul hesitated.
“Tall, I suppose?” suggested the stunted woman at his side.
“Yes.”
“And graceful?”
“Yes.”
“Has she—pretty hair?” asked Catrina.
“I think so—yes.”
“You are not observant,” said the girl in a singularly even and emotionless voice. “Perhaps you never noticed.”
“Not particularly,” answered Paul.
The girl raised her face. There was a painful smile twisting her lips. The moonlight fell upon her; the deep shadows beneath the eyes made her face wear a grin. Some have seen such a grin on the face of a drowning man—a sight not to be forgotten.
“Where does she live?” asked Catrina. She was unaware of the thought of murder that was in her own heart. Nevertheless, the desire—indefinite, shapeless—was there to kill this woman, who was tall and beautiful, whom Paul Alexis loved.
It must be remembered in extenuation that Catrina Lanovitch had lived nearly all her life in the province of Tver. She was not modern at all. Deprived of the advantages of our enlightened society press, without the benefit of our decadent fictional literature, she had lamentably narrow views of life. She was without that deep philosophy which teaches you, mademoiselle, who read this guileless tale, that nothing matters very much; that love is but a passing amusement, the plaything of an hour; that if Tom is faithless, Dick is equally amusing; while Harry’s taste in gloves and compliments is worthy of some consideration. That these things be true—that at all events the modern young lady thinks them true—is a matter of no doubt whatever. Has not the modern lady novelist told us so? And is not the modern lady novelist notable for her close observation of human nature, her impartial judgment of human motives, her sublime truth of delineation when she sits down to describe the thing she calls a man? By a close study of the refined feminine literature of the day the modern young lady acquires not only the knowledge of some startling social delinquencies—retailed, not as if they were quite the exception, but as if they were quite the correct thing—but also she will learn that she is human. She will realize how utterly absurd it is to attempt to be any thing else. If persons in books, she will reflect, are not high-minded or pure-minded, or even clean-minded, it is useless for an ordinary person out of a book to attempt to be any of these.
This is the lesson of some new writers, and Catrina Lanovitch had, fortunately enough, lacked the opportunity of learning it.
She only knew that she loved Paul, and that what she wanted was Paul’s love to go with her all through her life. She was not self-analytical, nor subtle, nor given to thinking about her own thoughts. Perhaps she was old-fashioned enough to be romantic. If this be so, we must bear with her romance, remembering that, at all events, romance serves to elevate, while realism tends undoubtedly toward deterioration.
Catrina hated Etta Sydney Bamborough with a simple half-barbaric hatred because she had gained the love of Paul Alexis. Etta had taken away from her the only man whom Catrina could ever love all through her life. The girl was simple enough, unsophisticated enough, never to dream of compromise. She never for a moment entertained the cheap, consolatory thought that in time she would get over it; she would marry somebody else, and make that compromise which is responsible for more misery in this world than ever is vice. In her great solitude, growing to womanhood as she had in the vast forest of Tver, she had learned nearly all that she knew from the best teacher, Nature; and she held the strange, effete theory that it is wicked for a woman to marry a man she does not love, or to marry at all for any reason except love. St. Paul and a few others held like theories, but nous avons changi tout cela.
“Where does she live?” asked Catrina.
“In London.”
They walked on in silence for a few moments. They were walking slowly, and they presently heard the footsteps of Karl Steinmetz and the servant close behind them.
“I wonder,” said Catrina, half to herself, “whether she loves you?”
It was a question, but not one that a man can answer. Paul said nothing, but walked gravely on by the side of this woman, who knew that even if Etta Sydney Bamborough should try she could never love him as she herself did.
When Karl Steinmetz joined them they were silent.
“I suppose,” he said in English, “that we may rely upon the discretion of the Fra|lein Catrina?”
“Yes,” answered the girl; “you may, so far as Osterno is concerned. But I would rather that you did not visit our people here. It is too dangerous in several ways.”
“Ah!” murmured Steinmetz, respectfully acquiescent. He was looking straight in front of him, with an expression of countenance which was almost dense. “Then we must bow to your decision,” he went on, turning toward the tall man striding along at his side.
“Yes,” said Paul simply.
Steinmetz smiled grimly to himself. It was one of his half-cynical theories that women hold the casting vote in all earthly matters, and when an illustration such as this came to prove the correctness of his deductions, he only smiled. He was not by nature a cynic—only by the force of circumstances.
“Will you come to the castle?” asked the girl at length, and Steinmetz by a gesture deferred the decision to Paul.
“I think not to-night, thanks,” said the latter. “We will take you as far as the gate.”
Catrina made no comment. When the tall gate-way was reached she stopped, and they all became aware of the sound of horses’ feet behind them.
“What is this?” asked Catrina.
“Only the starosta bringing our horses,” replied Steinmetz. “He has discovered nothing.”
Catrina nodded and held out her hand.
“Good-night,” she said, rather coldly. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Set a thief to catch a thief,” reflected Steinmetz. He said nothing, however, when he shook hands.
They mounted their horses and rode back the way they had come. For half an hour no one spoke. Then Paul broke the silence. He only said one word:
“D—n.”
“Yes,” returned Steinmetz quietly. “Charity is a dangerous plaything.”
The Palace of Industry—where, with a fine sense of the fitness of the name, the Parisians amuse themselves—was in a blaze of electric light and fashion. The occasion was the Concours Hippique, an ultra-equine fjte, where the lovers of the friend of man, and such persons as are fitted by an ungenerous fate with limbs suitable to horsey clothes, meet and bow. In France, as in a neighboring land (less sunny), horsiness is the last refuge of the diminutive. It is your small man who is ever the horsiest in his outward appearance, just as it is your very plain young person who is keenest at the Sunday-school class.
When a Frenchman is horsey he never runs the risk of being mistaken for a groom or a jockey, as do his turfy compeers in England. His costume is so exaggeratedly suggestive of the stable and the horse as to leave no doubt whatever that he is an amateur of the most pronounced type. His collar is so white and stiff and portentous as to make it impossible for him to tighten up his own girths. His breeches are so breechy about the knees as to render an ascent to the saddle a feat which it is not prudent to attempt without assistance. His gloves are so large and seamy as to make it extremely difficult to grasp the bridle, and quite impossible to buckle a strap. Your French horseman is, in fact, rather like a knight of old, inasmuch as his attendants are required to set him on his horse with his face turned in the right direction, his bridle in his left hand, his whip in his right, and, it is to be supposed, his heart in his mouth. When he is once up there, however, the gallant son of Gaul can teach even some of us, my fox-hunting masters, the way to sit a horse!
We have, however, little to do with such matters here, except in so far as they affect the persons connected with this record. The Concours Hippique, be it therefore known, was at its height. Great deeds of horsemanship had been successfully accomplished. The fair had smiled beneath pencilled eyebrows upon the brave in uniform and breeches. At the time when we join the fashionable throng, the fair are smiling their brightest. It is, in fact, an interval for refreshment.
A crowd of well-dressed men jostled each other good-naturedly around a long table, where insolent waiters served tepid coffee, and sandwiches that had been cut by the hand of a knave. In the background a number of ladies nodded encouragement to their cavaliers in the intervals of scrutinizing each other’s dresses. Many pencilled eyebrows were raised in derision of too little style displayed by some innocent rival, or brought down in disapproval of too much of the same vague quality displayed by one less innocent.
In the midst of these, as in his element, moved the Baron Claude de Chauxville, smiling his courteous, ready smile, which his enemies called a grin. He took up less room than the majority of the men around him; he succeeded in passing through narrower places, and jostled fewer people. In a word, he proved to his own satisfaction, and to the discomfiture of many a younger man, his proficiency in the gentle art of getting on in the world.
Not far from him stood a stout gentleman of middle age, with a heavy fair mustache brushed upward on either side. This man had an air of distinction which was notable even in this assembly; for there were many distinguished people present, and a Frenchman of note plays his part better than do we dull, self-conscious islanders. This man looked like a general, so upright was he, so keen his glance, so independent the carriage of his head.
He stood with his hands behind his back, looking gravely on at the social festivity. He bowed and raised his hat to many, but he entered into conversation with none.
“Ce Vassili,” he heard more than once whispered, “c’est un homme dangereux.”
And he smiled all the more pleasantly.
Now, if a very keen observer had taken the trouble to ignore the throng and watch two persons only, that observer might have discovered the fact that Claude de Chauxville was slowly and purposely making his way toward the man called Vassili.
De Chauxville knew and was known of many. He had but recently arrived from London. He found himself called upon to shake hands ` l’anglais with this one and that, giving all and sundry his impressions of the perfidious Albion with a verve and neatness truly French. He went from one to the other with perfect grace and savoir-faire, and each change of position brought him nearer to the middle-aged man with upturned mustache, upon whom his movements were by no means lost.
Finally De Chauxville bumped against the object of his quest—possibly, indeed, the object of his presence at the Concours Hippique. He turned with a ready apology.
“Ah!” he exclaimed; “the very man I was desiring to see.”
The individual known as “ce Vassili”—a term of mingled contempt and distrust—bowed very low. He was a plain commoner, while his interlocutor was a baron. The knowledge of this was subtly conveyed in his bow.
“How can I serve M. le Baron?” he enquired in a voice which was naturally loud and strong, but had been reduced by careful training to a tone inaudible at the distance of a few paces.
“By following me to the Cafi Tantale in ten minutes,” answered De Chauxville, passing on to greet a lady who was bowing to him with the labored grace of a Parisienne.
Vassili merely bowed and stood upright again. There was something in his attitude of quiet attention, of unobtrusive scrutiny and retiring intelligence, vaguely suggestive of the police—something which his friends refrained from mentioning to him; for this Vassili was a dignified man, of like susceptibilities with ourselves, and justly proud of the fact that he belonged to the Corps Diplomatique. What position he occupied in that select corporation he never vouchsafed to define. But it was known that he enjoyed considerable emoluments, while he was never called upon to represent his country or his emperor in any official capacity. He was attached, he said, to the Russian Embassy. His enemies called him a spy; but the world never puts a charitable construction on that of which it only has a partial knowledge.
In ten minutes Claude de Chauxville left the Concours Hippique. In the Champs Elysies he turned to the left, up toward the Bois du Boulogne; turned to the left again, and took one of the smaller paths that lead to one or other of the sequestered and somewhat select cafis on the south side of the Champs Elysies.
At the Cafi Tantale—not in the garden, for it was winter, but in the inner room—he found the man called Vassili consuming a pensive and solitary glass of liqueur.
De Chauxville sat down, stated his requirements to the waiter in a single word, and offered his companion a cigarette, which Vassili accepted with the consciousness that it came from a coroneted case.
“I am rather thinking of visiting Russia,” said the Frenchman.
“Again,” added Vassili, in his quiet voice.
De Chauxville looked up sharply, smiled, and waved the word away with a gesture of the fingers that held a cigarette.
“If you will—again.”
“On private affairs?” enquired Vassili, not so much, it would appear, from curiosity as from habit. He put the question with the assurance of one who has a right to know.
De Chauxville nodded acquiescence through the tobacco smoke.
“The bane of public men—private affairs,” he said epigrammatically.
But the attachi to the Russian Embassy was either too dense or too clever to be moved to a sympathetic smile by a cheap epigram.
“And M. le Baron wants a passport?” he said, lapsing into the useful third person, which makes the French language so much more fitted to social and diplomatic purposes than is our rough northern tongue.
“And more,” answered De Chauxville. “I want what you hate parting with—information.”
The man called Vassili leaned back in his chair with a little smile. It was an odd little smile, which fell over his features like a mask and completely hid his thoughts. It was apparent that Claude de Chauxville’s tricks of speech and manner fell here on barren ground. The Frenchman’s epigrams, his method of conveying his meaning in a non-committing and impersonal generality, failed to impress this hearer. The difference between a Frenchman and a Russian is that the former is amenable to every outward influence—the outer thing penetrates. The Russian, on the contrary, is a man who works his thoughts, as it were, from internal generation to external action. The action, moreover, is demonstrative, which makes the Russian different from other northern nations of an older civilization and a completer self-control.
“Then,” said Vassili, “if I understand M. le Baron aright, it is a question of private and personal affairs that suggests this journey to—Russia?”
“Precisely.”
“In no sense a mission?” suggested the other, sipping his liqueur thoughtfully.
“In no sense a mission. I give you a proof. I have been granted six months’ leave of absence, as you probably know.”
“Precisely so, mo’ cher Baron.” Vassili had a habit of applying to every one the endearing epithet, which lost a consonant somewhere in his mustache. “When a military officer is granted a six months’ leave, it is exactly then that we watch him.”
De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders in deprecation, possibly with contempt for any system of watching.
“May one call it an affaire de coeur?” asked Vassili, with his grim smile.
“Certainly. Are not all private affairs such, one way or the other?”
“And you want a passport?”
“Yes—a special one.”
“I will see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
Vassili emptied his glass, drew in his feet, and glanced at the clock.
“But that is not all I want,” said De Chauxville.
“So I perceive.”
“I want you to tell me what you know of Prince Pavlo Alexis.”
“Of Tver?”
“Of Tver. What you know from your point of view, you understand, my dear Vassili. Nothing political, nothing incriminating, nothing official. I only want a few social details.”
Again the odd smile fell over the dignified face.
“In case,” said Vassili, rather slowly, “I should only impart to you stale news and valueless details with which you are already acquainted, I must ask you to tell me first what you know—from your point of view.”
“Certainly,” answered De Chauxville, with engaging frankness. “The man I know slightly is the sort of thing that Eton and Oxford turn out by the dozen. Well dressed, athletic, silent, a thorough gentleman—et voil` tout.”
The face of Vassili expressed something remarkably like disbelief.
“Ye—es,” he said slowly.
“And you?” suggested De Chauxville.
“You leave too much to my imagination,” said Vassili. “You relate mere facts—have you no suppositions, no questions in your mind about the man?”
“I want to know what his purpose in life may be. There is a purpose—one sees it in his face. I want also to know what he does with his spare time; he must have much to dispose of in England.”
Vassili nodded, and suddenly launched into detail.
“Prince Pavlo Alexis,” he said, “is a young man who takes a full and daring advantage of his peculiar position. He defies many laws in a quiet, persistent way which impresses the smaller authorities and to a certain extent paralyzes them. He was in the Charity League—deeply implicated. He had a narrow escape. He was pulled through by the cleverest man in Russia.”
“Karl Steinmetz?”
“Yes,” answered Vassili behind the rigid smile; “Karl Steinmetz.”
“And that,” said De Chauxville, watching the face of his companion, “is all you can tell me?”
“To be quite frank with you,” replied the man who had never been quite frank in his life, “that is all I want to tell you.”
De Chauxville lighted a cigarette, with exaggerated interest in the match.
“Paul is a friend of mine,” he said calmly. “I may be staying at Osterno with him.”
The rigid smile never relaxed.
“Not with Karl Steinmetz on the premises,” said Vassili imperturbably.
“The astute Mr. Steinmetz may be removed to some other sphere of usefulness. There is a new spoke in his Teutonic wheel.”
“Ah!”
“Prince Paul is about to marry—the widow of Sydney Bamborough.”
“Sydney Bamborough,” repeated Vassili musingly, with a perfect expression of innocence on his well-cut face. “I have heard that name before.”
De Chauxville laughed quietly, as if in appreciation of a pretty trick which he knew as well as its performer.
“She is a friend of mine.”
The attachi, as he was pleased to call himself, to the Russian Embassy, leant his arms on the table, bending forward and bringing his large, fleshy face within a few inches of De Chauxville’s keen countenance.
“That makes all the difference,” he said.
“I thought it would,” answered De Chauxville, meeting the steady gaze firmly.