“You must accept,” Steinmetz repeated to Paul. “There is no help for it. We cannot afford to offend Vassili, of all people in the world.”
They were standing together in the saloon of a suite of rooms assigned for the time to Paul and his party in the Httel Bristol in Paris. Steinmetz, who held an open letter in his hand, looked out of the window across the quiet Place Vendtme. A north wind was blowing with true Parisian keenness, driving before it a fine snow, which adhered bleakly to the northern face of a column which is chiefly remarkable for the facility with which it falls and rises again.
Steinmetz looked at the letter with a queer smile. He held it out from him as if he distrusted the very stationery.
“So friendly,” he exclaimed; “so very friendly! ‘Ce bon Steinmetz’ he calls me. ‘Ce bon Steinmetz’—confound his cheek! He hopes that his dear prince will waive ceremony and bring his charming princess to dine quite en famille at his little pied ` terre in the Champs Ilysies. He guarantees that only his sister, the marquise, will be present, and he hopes that ‘Ce bon Steinmetz,’ will accompany you, and also the young lady, the cousin of the princess.”
Steinmetz threw the letter down on the table, left it there for a moment, and then, picking it up, he crossed the room and threw it into the fire.
“Which means,” he explained, “that M. Vassili knows we are here, and unless we dine with him we shall be subjected to annoyance and delay on the frontier by a stupid—a singularly and suspiciously stupid—minor official. If we refuse, Vassili will conclude that we are afraid of him. Therefore we must accept. Especially as Vassili has his weak points. He loves a lord, ‘Ce Vassili.’ If you accept on some of that stationery I ordered for you with a colossal gold coronet, that will already be of some effect. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. M. Vassili’s weakest link will be touched by your gorgeous note-paper. If ce cher prince and la charmante princesse are gracious to him, Vassili is already robbed of half his danger.”
Paul laughed. It was his habit either to laugh or to grumble at Karl Steinmetz’s somewhat subtle precautions. The word “danger” invariably made him laugh, with a ring in his voice which seemed to betoken enjoyment.
“Of course,” he said, “I leave these matters to you. Let us show Vassili, at all events, that we are not afraid of him.”
“Then sit down and accept.”
That which M. Vassili was pleased to call his little dog-hole in the Champs Ilysies was, in fact, a gorgeous house in the tawdry style of modern Paris—resplendent in gray iron railings, and high gate-posts surmounted by green cactus plants cunningly devised in cast iron.
The heavy front door was thrown open by a lackey, and others bowed in the halls as if by machinery. Two maids pounced upon the ladies with the self-assurance of their kind and country, and led the way upstairs, while the men removed fur coats in the hall. It was all very princely and gorgeous and Parisian.
Vassili and his sister the marquise—a stout lady in ruby velvet and amethysts, who invariably caused Maggie Delafield’s mouth to twitch whenever she opened her own during the evening—received the guests in the drawing-room. They were standing on the white fur hearth-rug side by side, when the doors were dramatically thrown open, and the servant rolled the names unctuously over his tongue.
Steinmetz, who was behind, saw everything. He saw Vassili’s masklike face contract with stupefaction when he set eyes on Etta. He saw the self-contained Russian give a little gasp, and mutter an exclamation before he collected himself sufficiently to bow and conceal his face. But he could not see Etta’s face for a moment or two—until the formal greetings were over. When he did see it, he noted that it was as white as marble.
“Aha! Ce bon Steinmetz!” cried Vassili, with less formality, holding out his hand with frank and boyish good humor.
“Aha! Ce cher Vassili!” returned Steinmetz, taking the hand.
“It is good of you, M. le Prince, and you, madame, to honor us in our small house,” said the marquise in a guttural voice such as one might expect from within ruby velvet and amethysts. Thereafter she subsided into silence and obscurity so far as the evening was concerned and the present historian is interested.
“So,” said Vassili, with a comprehensive bow to all his guests—“so you are bound for Russia. But I envy you—I envy you. You know Russia, Mme. la Princesse?”
Etta met his veiled gaze calmly.
“A little,” she replied.
There was no sign of recognition in his eyes now, nor pallor on her face.
“A beautiful country, but the rest of Europe does not believe it. And the estate of the prince is one of the vastest, if not the most beautiful. It is a sporting estate, is it not, prince?”
“Essentially so,” replied Paul. “Bears, wolves, deer, besides, of course, black game, capercailzie, ptarmigan—every thing one could desire.”
“Speaking as a sportsman,” suggested Vassili gravely.
“Speaking as a sportsman.”
“Of course—” Vassili paused, and with a little gesture of the hand included Steinmetz in the conversation. It may have been that he preferred to have him talking than watching. “Of course, like all great Russian landholders, you have your troubles with the people, though you are not, strictly speaking, within the famine district.”
“Not quite; we are not starving, but we are hungry,” said Steinmetz bluntly.
Vassili laughed, and shook a gold eye-glass chidingly.
“Ah, my friend, your old pernicious habit of calling a spade a spade! It is unfortunate that they should hunger a little, but what will you? They must learn to be provident, to work harder and drink less. With such people experience is the only taskmaster possible. It is useless talking to them. It is dangerous to pauperize them. Besides, the accounts that one reads in the newspapers are manifestly absurd and exaggerated. You must not, mademoiselle,” he said, turning courteously to Maggie, “you must not believe all you are told about Russia.”
“I do not,” replied Maggie, with an honest smile which completely baffled M. Vassili. He had not had much to do with people who smiled honestly.
“Vrai!” he said, with grave emphasis; “I am not joking. It is a matter of the strictest fact that fiction has for the moment fixed its fancy upon my country—just as it has upon the East End of your London. Mon Dieu! what a lot of harm fiction with a purpose can do!”
“But we do not take our facts from fiction in England,” said Maggie.
“Nor,” put in Steinmetz, with his blandest smile, “do we allow fiction to affect our facts.”
Vassili glanced at Steinmetz sideways.
“Here is dinner,” he said. “Mme. la Princesse, may I have the honor?”
The table was gorgeously decorated; the wine was perfect; the dishes Parisian. Every thing was brilliant, and Etta’s spirits rose. Such little things affect the spirits of such little-minded women. It requires a certain mental reserve from which to extract cheerfulness over a chop and a pint of beer withal, served on a doubtful cloth. But some of us find it easy enough to be witty and brilliant over good wine and a perfectly appointed table.
“It is exile; it is nothing short of exile,” protested Vassili, who led the conversation. “Much as I admire my own country, as a country, I do not pretend to regret a fate that keeps me resident in Paris. For men it is different, but for madame, and for you, mademoiselle—ach!” He shrugged his shoulders and looked up to the ceiling in mute appeal to the gods above it. “Beauty, brilliancy, wit—they are all lost in Russia.”
He bowed to the princess, who was looking, and to Maggie, who was not.
“What would Paris say if it knew what it was losing?” he added in a lower tone to Etta, who smiled, well pleased. She was not always able to distinguish between impertinence and flattery. And indeed they are so closely allied that the distinction is subtle.
Steinmetz, on the left hand of the marquise, addressed one or two remarks to that lady, who replied with her mouth full. He soon discovered that that which was before her interested her more than any thing around, and during the banquet he contented himself by uttering an exclamation of delight at a particular flavor which the lady was kind enough to point out to him with an eloquent and emphatic fork from time to time.
Vassili noted this with some disgust. He would have preferred that Karl Steinmetz were greedy or more conversational.
“But,” the host added aloud, “ladies are so good. Perhaps you are interested in the peasants?”
Etta looked at Steinmetz, who gave an imperceptible nod.
“Yes,” she answered, “I am.”
Vassili followed her glance, and found Steinmetz eating with grave appreciation of the fare provided.
“Ah!” he said in an expectant tone; “then you will no doubt pass much of your time in endeavoring to alleviate their troubles—their self-inflicted troubles, with all deference to ce cher prince.”
“Why with deference to me?” asked Paul, looking up quietly, with something in his steady gaze that made Maggie glance anxiously at Steinmetz.
“Well, I understand that you hold different opinions,” said the Russian.
“Not at all,” answered Paul. “I admit that the peasants have themselves to blame—just as a dog has himself to blame when he is caught in a trap.”
“Is the case analogous? Let me recommend those olives—I have them from Barcelona by a courier.”
“Quite,” answered Paul; “and it is the obvious duty of those who know better to teach the dog to avoid the places where the traps are set. Thanks, the olives are excellent.”
“Ah!” said Vassili, turning courteously to Maggie, “I sometimes thank my star that I am not a landholder—only a poor bureaucrat. It is so difficult to comprehend these questions, mademoiselle. But of all men in or out of Russia it is possible our dear prince knows best of what he is talking.”
“Oh, no!” disclaimed Paul, with that gravity at which some were ready to laugh. “I only judge in a small way from, a small experience.”
“Ah! you are too modest. You know the peasants thoroughly, you understand them, you love them—so, at least, I have been told. Is it not so, Mme. la Princesse?”
Karl Steinmetz was frowning over an olive.
“I really do not know,” said Etta, who had glanced across the table.
“I assure you, madame, it is so. I am always hearing good of you, prince.”
“From whom?” asked Paul.
Vassili shrugged his peculiarly square shoulders.
“Ah! From all and sundry.”
“I did not know the prince had so many enemies,” said Steinmetz bluntly, whereat the marquise laughed suddenly, and apparently approached within bowing distance of apoplexy.
In such wise the conversation went on during the dinner, which was a long one. Continually, repeatedly, Vassili approached the subject of Osterno and the daily life in that sequestered country. But those who knew were silent, and it was obvious that Etta and Maggie were ignorant of the life to which they were going.
From time to time Vassili raised his dull, yellow eyes to the servants, who d’ailleurs were doing their work perfectly, and invariably the master’s glance fell to the glasses again. These the servants never left in peace—constantly replenishing, constantly watching with that assiduity which makes men thirsty against their will by reason of the repeated reminder.
But tongues wagged no more freely for the choice vintages poured upon them. Paul had a grave, strong head and that self-control against which alcohol may ply itself in vain. Karl Steinmetz had taken his degree at Heidelberg. He was a seasoned vessel, having passed that way before.
Etta was bright enough—amusing, light, and gay—so long as it was a question of mere social gossip; but whenever Vassili spoke of the country to which he expressed so deep a devotion, she, seeming to take her cue from her husband and his agent, fell to pleasant, non-committing silence.
It was only after dinner, in the drawing-room, while musicians discoursed Offenbach and Rossini from behind a screen of fern and flower, that Vassili found an opportunity of addressing himself directly to Etta. In part she desired this opportunity, with a breathless apprehension behind her bright society smile. Without her assistance he never would have had it.
“It is most kind of you,” he said in French, which language had been spoken all the evening in courtesy to the marquise, who was now asleep—“it is most kind of you to condescend to visit my poor house, princess. Believe me, I feel the honor deeply. When you first came into the room—you may have observed it—I was quite taken aback. I—I have read in books of beauty capable of taking away a man’s breath. You must excuse me—I am a plain-spoken man. I never met it until this evening.”
Etta excused him readily enough. She could forgive plenty of plain-speaking of this description. Had she not been inordinately vain, this woman, like many, would have been extraordinarily clever. She laughed, with little sidelong glances.
“I only hope that you will honor Paris on your way home to England,” went on Vassili, who had a wonderful knack of judging men and women, especially shallow ones. “Now, when may that be? When may we hope to see you again? How long will you be in Russia, and—”
“Ce Vassili is the best English scholar I know!” broke in Steinmetz, who had approached somewhat quietly. “But he will not talk, princess—he is so shy.”
Paul was approaching also. It was eleven o’clock, he said, and travellers who had to make an early start would do well to get home to bed.
When the tall doors had been closed behind the departing guests, Vassili walked slowly to the fire-place. He posted himself on the bear-skin hearthrug, his perfectly shod feet well apart—a fine dignified figure of a man, of erect and military carriage; a very mask of a face—soulless, colorless, emotionless ever.
He stood biting at his thumb-nail, looking at the door through which Etta Alexis had just passed in all the glory of her beauty, wealth, and position.
“The woman,” he said slowly, “who sold me the Charity League papers—and she thinks I do not recognize her!”
Karl Steinmetz had apparently been transacting business on the Vassili Ostrov, which the travelled reader doubtless knows as the northern bank of the Neva, a part of Petersburg—an island, as the name tells us, where business is transacted; where steamers land their cargoes and riverside loafers impede the traffic.
What the business of Karl Steinmetz may have been is not of moment or interest; moreover, it was essentially the affair of a man capable of holding his own and his tongue against the world.
He was recrossing the river, not by the bridge, which requires a doffed hat by reason of its shrine, but by one of the numerous roads cut across the ice from bank to bank. He duly reached the southern shore, ascending to the Admiralty Gardens by a flight of sanded steps. Here he lighted a cigar, and, tucking his hands deep into the pockets of his fur coat, he proceeded to walk slowly through the bare and deserted public garden.
A girl had crossed the river in front of him at a smart pace. She now slackened her speed so much as to allow him to pass her. Karl Steinmetz noticed the action. He noticed most things—this dull German. Presently she passed him again. She dropped her umbrella, and before picking it up described a circle with it—a manoeuvre remarkably like a signal. Then she turned abruptly and looked into his face, displaying a pleasing little round physiognomy with a smiling mouth and exaggeratedly grave eyes. It was a face of all too common a type in these days of cheap educational literature—the face of a womanly woman engaged in unwomanly work.
Then she came back.
Steinmetz raised his hat in his most fatherly way.
“My dear young lady,” he said in Russian, “if my personal appearance has made so profound an impression as my vanity prompts me to believe, would it not be decorous of you to conceal your feelings beneath a maiden modesty? If, on the other hand, the signals you have been making to me are of profound political importance, let me assure you that I am no Nihilist.”
“Then,” said the girl, beginning to walk by his side, “what are you?”
“What you see—a stout middle-aged man in easy circumstances, happily placed in social obscurity. Which means that I have few enemies and fewer friends.”
The girl looked as if she would like to laugh, had such exercise been in keeping with a professional etiquette.
“Your name is Karl Steinmetz,” she said gravely.
“That is the name by which I am known to a large staff of creditors,” replied he.
“If you will go to No. 4, Passage Kazan, at the back of the cathedral, second-floor back room on the left at the top of the stairs, and go straight into the room, you will find a friend who wishes to see you,” she said, as one repeating a lesson by rote.
“And who are you, my dear young lady!”
“I—I am no one. I am only a paid agent.”
“Ah!”
They walked on in silence a few paces. The bells of St. Isaac’s Church suddenly burst out into a wild carillon, as is their way, effectually preventing further conversation for a few moments.
“Will you go?” asked the girl, when the sound had broken off as suddenly as it had commenced.
“Probably. I am curious and not nervous—except of damp sheets. My anonymous friend does not expect me to stay all night, I presume. Did he—or is it a she, my fatal beauty?—diditnot name an hour?”
“Between now and seven o’clock.”
“Thank you.”
“God be with you!” said the girl, suddenly wheeling round and walking away.
Without looking after her Steinmetz walked on, gradually increasing his pace. In a few minutes he reached the large house standing within iron gates at the upper end of the English quay, the house of Prince Pavlo Howard Alexis.
He found Paul alone in his study. In a few words he explained the situation.
“What do you think it means?” asked the prince.
“Heaven only knows!”
“And you will go?”
“Of course,” replied Steinmetz. “I love a mystery, especially in Petersburg. It sounds so like a romance written in the Kennington Road by a lady who has never been nearer to Russia than Margate.”
“I had better go with you,” said Paul.
“Gott! No!” exclaimed Steinmetz; “I must go alone. I will take Parks to drive the sleigh, if I may, though. Parks is a steady man, who loves a rough-and-tumble. A typical British coachman—the brave Parks!”
“Back in time for dinner?” asked Paul.
“I hope so. I have had such mysterious appointments thrust upon me before. It is probably a friend who wants a hundred-ruble note until next Monday.”
The cathedral clock struck six as Karl Steinmetz turned out of the Nevski Prospekt into the large square before the sacred edifice. He soon found the Kazan Passage—a very nest of toyshops—and, following the directions given, he mounted a narrow staircase. He knocked at the door on the left hand at the top of the stairs.
“Come in!” said a voice which caused him to start.
He pushed open the door. The room was a small one, brilliantly lighted by a paraffin lamp. At the table sat an old man with broad benevolent face, high forehead, thin hair, and that smile which savors of the milk of human kindness, and in England suggests Nonconformity.
“You!” ejaculated Steinmetz. “Stipan!”
“Yes. Come in and close the door.”
He laid aside his pen, extended his hand, and, rising, kissed Karl Steinmetz on both cheeks after the manner of Russians.
“Yes, my dear Karl. It seems that the good God has still a little work for Stipan Lanovitch to do. I got away quite easily, in the usual way, through a paid Evasion Agency. I have been forwarded from pillar to post like a prize fowl, and reached Petersburg last night. I have not long to stay. I am going south. I may be able to do some good yet. I hear that Paul is working wonders in Tver.”
“What about money?” asked Steinmetz, who was always practical.
“Catrina sent it, the dear child! That is one of the conditions made by the Agency—a hard one. I am to see no relations. My wife—well, bon Dieu! it does not matter much. She is occupied in keeping herself warm, no doubt. But Catrina! that is a different matter. Tell me—how is she? That is the first thing I want to know.”
“She is well,” answered Steinmetz. “I saw her yesterday.”
“And happy?” The broad-faced man looked into Steinmetz’s face with considerable keenness.
“Yes.”
It was a moment for mental reservations. One wonders whether such are taken account of in heaven.
“And Paul?” asked the Count Stipan Lanovitch at once. “Tell me about him.”
“He is married,” answered Steinmetz.
The Count Lanovitch was looking at the lamp. He continued to look at it as if interested in the mechanism of the burner. Then he turned his eyes to the face of his companion.
“I wonder, my friend,” he said slowly, “how much you know?”
“Nothing,” answered Steinmetz.
The count looked at him enquiringly, heaved a sharp sigh, and abandoned the subject.
“Well,” he said, “let us get to business. I have much to ask and to tell you. I want you to see Catrina and to tell her that I am safe and well, but she must not attempt to see me or correspond with me for some years yet. Of course you heard no account of my trial. I was convicted, on the evidence of paid witnesses, of inciting to rebellion. It was easy enough, of course. I shall live either in the south or in Austria. It is better for you to be in ignorance.”
Steinmetz nodded his head curtly.
“I do not want to know,” he said.
“Will you please ask Catrina to send me money through the usual channel? No more than she has been sending. It will suffice for my small wants. Perhaps some day we may meet in Switzerland or in America. Tell the dear child that. Tell her I pray the good God to allow that meeting. As for Russia, her day has not come yet. It will not come in our time, my dear friend. We are only the sowers. So much for the future. Now about the past. I have not been idle. I know who stole the papers of the Charity League and sold them. I know who bought them and paid for them.”
Steinmetz closed the door. He came back to the table. He was not smiling now—quite the contrary.
“Tell me,” he said. “I want to know that badly.”
The Count Lanovitch looked up with a peculiar soft smile—acquired in prison. There is no mistaking it.
“Oh, I bear no ill will,” he said.
“I do,” answered Steinmetz bluntly. “Who stole the papers from Thors?”
“Sydney Bamborough.”
“Good God in heaven! Is that true?”
“Yes, my friend.”
Steinmetz passed his broad hand over his forehead as if dazed.
“And who sold them?” he asked.
“His wife.”
Count Lanovitch was looking at the burner of the lamp. There was a peculiar crushed look about the man, as if he had reached the end of his life, and was lying like a ship, hopelessly disabled in smooth water, where nothing could affect him more.
Steinmetz scratched his forehead with one finger, reflectively.
“Vassili bought them,” he said; “I can guess that.”
“You guess right,” returned Lanovitch quietly.
Steinmetz sat down. He looked round as if wondering whether the room was very hot. Then with a large handkerchief he wiped his brow.
“You have surprised me,” he admitted. “There are complications. I shall sit up all night with your news, my dear Stipan. Have you details? Wonderful—wonderful! Of course there is a God in heaven. How can people doubt it—eh?”
“Yes,” said Stipan Lanovitch quietly. “There is a God in heaven, and at present he is angry with Russia. Yes, I have details. Sydney Bamborough came to stay at Thors. Of course he knew all about the Charity League—you remember that. It appears that his wife was waiting for him and the papers at Tver. He took them from my room, but he did not get them all. Had he got them all you would not be sitting there, my friend. The general scheme he got—the list of committee names, the local agents, the foreign agents. But the complete list of the League he failed to find. He secured the list of subscribers, but learned nothing from it because the sums were identified by a numeral only, the clue to the numbers being the complete list, which I burned when I missed the other papers.”
Steinmetz nodded curtly.
“That was wise,” he said. “You are a clever man, Stipan, but too good for this world and its rascals. Go on.”
“It would appear that Bamborough rode to Tver with the papers, which he handed to his wife. She took them to Paris while he intended to come back to Thors. He had a certain cheap cunning and unbounded impertinence. But—as you know, perhaps—he disappeared.”
“Yes,” said Steinmetz, scratching his forehead with one finger. “Yes—he disappeared.”
Karl Steinmetz had one great factor of success in this world—an infinite capacity for holding his cards.
“One more item,” said the count, in his businesslike, calm way. “Vassili paid that woman seven thousand pounds for the papers.”
“And probably charged his masters ten,” added Steinmetz.
“And now you must go!”
The count rose and looked at his watch—a cheap American article, with a loud tick. He held it out with his queer washed-out smile, and Steinmetz smiled.
The two embraced again—and there was nothing funny in the action. It is a singular thing that the sight of two men kissing is conducive either to laughter or to tears. There is no medium emotion.
“My dear friend—my very dear friend,” said the count, “God be with you always. We may meet again—or we may not.”
Steinmetz walked down the Nevski Prospekt on the left-hand pavement—no one walks on the other—and the sleigh followed him. He turned into a large, brilliantly lighted cafi, and loosened his coat.
“Give me beer,” he said to the waiter; “a very large quantity of it.”
The man smiled obsequiously as he set the foaming mug before him.
“Is it that his Excellency is cold?” he enquired.
“No, it isn’t,” answered Steinmetz. “Quite the contrary.”
He drank the beer, and holding out his hand in the shadow of the table, he noticed that it trembled only a little.
“That is better,” he murmured. “But I must sit here a while longer. I suppose I was upset. That is what they call it—upset! I have never been like that before. Those lamps in the Prospekt! Gott! how they jumped up and down!”
He pressed his hand over his eyes as if to shut out the brightness of the room—the glaring gas and brilliant decorations—the shining bottles and the many tables which would not keep still.
“Here,” he said to the man, “give me more beer.”
Presently he rose, and, getting rather clumsily into his sleigh, drove back at the usual breakneck pace to the palace at the upper end of the English Quay.
He sent an ambiguous message to Paul, saying that he had returned and was dressing for dinner. This ceremony he went through slowly, as one dazed by a great fall or a heavy fatigue. His servant, a quick, silent man, noticed the strangeness of his manner, and like a wise servant only betrayed the result of his observation by a readier service, a quicker hand, a quieter motion.
As Steinmetz went to the drawing-room he glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes past seven. He still had ten minutes to spare before dinner.
He opened the drawing-room door. Etta was sitting by the fire, alone. She glanced back over her shoulder in a quick, hunted way which had only become apparent to Steinmetz since her arrival at Petersburg.
“Good-evening,” she said.
“Good-evening, madame,” he answered.
He closed the door carefully behind him.
Etta did not move when Steinmetz approached, except, indeed, to push one foot farther out toward the warmth of the wood fire. She certainly was very neatly shod. Steinmetz was one of her few failures. She had never got any nearer to the man. Despite his gray hair and bulky person she argued that he was still a man, and therefore an easy victim to flattery—open to the influence of beauty.
“I wonder why,” she said, looking into the fire, “you hate me.”
Steinmetz looked down at her with his grim smile. The mise en schne was perfect, from the thoughtful droop of the head to the innocent display of slipper.
“I wonder why you think that of me,” he replied.
“One cannot help perceiving that which is obvious.”
“While that which is purposely made obvious serves to conceal that which may exist behind it,” replied the stout man.
Etta paused to reflect over this. Was Steinmetz going to make love to her? She was not an inexperienced girl, and knew that there was nothing impossible or even improbable in the thought. She wondered what Karl Steinmetz must have been like when he was a young man. He had a deft way even now of planting a double entendre when he took the trouble. How could she know that his manner was always easiest, his attitude always politest, toward the women whom he despised. In his way this man was a philosopher. He had a theory that an exaggerated politeness is an insult to a woman’s intellect.
“You think I do not care,” said the Princess Howard Alexis.
“You think I do not admire you,” replied Steinmetz imperturbably.
She looked up at him.
“Do you not give me every reason to think so?” she returned, with a toss of the head.
She was one of those women—and there are not a few—who would quarrel with you if you do not admire them.
“Not intentionally, princess. I am, as you know, a German of no very subtle comprehension. My position in your household appears to me to be a little above the servants, although the prince is kind enough to make a friend of me and his friends are so good as to do the same. I do not complain. Far from it. I am well paid. I am interested in my work. I am more or less my own master. I am very fond of Paul. You—are kind and forbearing. I do my best—in a clumsy way, no doubt—to spare you my heavy society. But of course I do not presume to form an opinion upon your—upon you.”
“But I want you to form an opinion,” she said petulantly.
“Then you must know that I could only form one which would be pleasing to you.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” replied Etta. “Of course I know that all that you say about position and work is mere irony. Paul thinks there is no one in the world like you.”
Steinmetz glanced sharply down at her. He had never considered the possibility that she might love Paul. Was this, after all, jealousy? He had attributed it to vanity.
“And I have no doubt he is right,” she went on. Suddenly she gave a little laugh. “Don’t you understand?” she said. “I want to be friends.”
She did not look at him, but sat with pouting lips holding out her hand.
Karl Steinmetz had been up to the elbows, as it were, in the diplomacy of an unscrupulous, grasping age ever since his college days. He had been behind the scenes in more than one European crisis, and that which goes on behind the scenes is not always edifying or conducive to a squeamishness of touch. He was not the man to be mawkishly afraid of soiling his fingers. But the small white hand rather disconcerted him.
He took it, however, in his great, warm, soft grasp, held it for a moment, and relinquished it.
“I don’t want you to address all your conversation to Maggie, and to ignore me. Do you think Maggie so very pretty?”
There was a twist beneath the gray mustache as he answered, “Is that all the friendship you desire? Does it extend no farther than a passing wish to be first in petty rivalries of daily existence? I am afraid, my dear princess, that my friendship is a heavier matter—a clumsier thing than that.”
“A big thing not easily moved,” she suggested, looking up with her dauntless smile.
He shrugged his great shoulders.
“It may be—who knows? I hope it is,” he answered.
“The worst of those big things is that they are sometimes in the way,” said Etta reflectively, without looking at him.
“And yet the life that is only a conglomeration of trifles is a poor life to look back upon.”
“Meaning mine?” she asked.
“Your life has not been trifling,” he said gravely.
She looked up at him, and then for some moments kept silence while she idly opened and shut her fan. There was in the immediate vicinity of Karl Steinmetz a sort of atmosphere of sympathy which had the effect of compelling confidence. Even Etta was affected by it. During the silence recorded she was quelling a sudden desire to say things to this man which she had never said to any. She only succeeded in part.
“Do you ever feel an unaccountable sensation of dread,” she asked, with a weary little laugh; “a sort of foreboding with nothing definite to forebode?”
“Unaccountable—no,” replied Steinmetz. “But then I am a German—and stout, which may make a difference. I have no nerves.”
He looked into the fire through his benevolent gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Is it nerves—or is it Petersburg?” she asked abruptly. “I think it is Petersburg. I hate Petersburg.”
“Why Petersburg more than Moscow or Nijni or—Tver?”
She drew in a long, slow breath, looking him up and down the while from the corners of her eyes.
“I do not know,” she replied collectedly; “I think it is damp. These houses are built on reclaimed land, I believe. This was all marsh, was it not?”
He did not answer her question, and somehow she seemed to expect no reply. He stood blinking down into the fire while she watched him furtively from the corners of her eyes, her lips parched and open, her face quite white.
A few moments before she had protested that she desired his friendship. She knew now that she could not brave his enmity. And the one word “Tver” had done it all! The mere mention of a town, obscure and squalid, on the upper waters of the mighty Volga in Mid-Russia!
During those few moments she suddenly came face to face with her position. What had she to offer this man? She looked him up and down—stout, placid, and impenetrable. Here was no common adventurer seeking place—no coxcomb seeking ladies’ favors—no pauper to be bought with gold. She had no means of ascertaining how much he knew, how much he suspected. She had to deal with a man who held the best cards and would not play them. She could never hope to find out whether his knowledge and his suspicions were his alone or had been imparted to others. In her walk through life she had jostled mostly villains; and a villain is no very dangerous foe, for he fights on slippery ground. Except Paul she had never had to do with a man who was quite honest, upright, and fearless; and she had fallen into the common error of thinking that all such are necessarily simple, unsuspicious, and a little stupid.
She breathed hard, living through years of anxiety in a few moments of time, and she could only realize that she was helpless, bound hand and foot in this man’s power.
It was he who spoke first. In the smaller crises of life it is usually the woman who takes this privilege upon herself; but the larger situations need a man’s steadier grasp.
“My dear lady,” he said, “if you are content to take my friendship as it is, it is yours. But I warn you it is no showy drawing-room article. There will be no compliments, no pretty speeches, no little gifts of flowers, and such trumpery amenities. It will all be very solid and middle-aged, like myself.”
“You think,” returned the lady, “that I am fit for nothing better than pretty speeches and compliments and floral offerings?”
She broke off with a forced little laugh, and awaited his verdict with defiant eyes upraised. He returned the gaze through his placid spectacles; her beauty, in its setting of brilliant dress and furniture, soft lights, flowers, and a thousand feminine surroundings, failed to dazzle him.
“I do,” he said quietly.
“And yet you offer me your friendship?”
He bowed in acquiescence.
“Why?” she asked.
“For Paul’s sake, my dear lady.”
She shrugged her shoulders and turned away from him.
“Of course,” she said, “it is quite easy to be rude. As it happens, it is precisely for Paul’s sake that I took the trouble of speaking to you on this matter. I do not wish him to be troubled with such small domestic affairs; and therefore, if we are to live under the same roof, I shall deem it a favor if you will, at all events, conceal your disapproval of me.”
He bowed gravely and kept silence. Etta sat with a little patch of color on either cheek, looking into the fire until the door was opened and Maggie came in.
Steinmetz went toward her with his grave smile, while Etta hid a face which had grown haggard.
Maggie glanced from one to the other with frank interest. The relationship between these two had rather puzzled her of late.
“Well,” said Steinmetz, “and what of St. Petersburg?”
“I am not disappointed,” replied Maggie. “It is all I expected and more. I am not blasie like Etta. Every thing interests me.”
“We were discussing Petersburg when you came in,” said Steinmetz, drawing forward a chair. “The princess does not like it. She complains of—nerves.”
“Nerves!” exclaimed Maggie, turning to her cousin. “I did not suspect you of having them.”
Etta smiled, a little wearily.
“One never knows,” she answered, forcing herself to be light, “what one may come to in old age. I saw a gray hair this morning. I am nearly thirty-three, you know. When glamour goes, nerves come.”
“Well, I suppose they do—especially in Russia, perhaps. There is a glamour about Russia, and I mean to cultivate it rather than nerves. There is a glamour about every thing—the broad streets, the Neva, the snow, and the cold. Especially the people. It is always especially the people, is it not?”
“It is the people, my dear young lady, that lend interest to the world.”
“Paul took me out in a sleigh this morning,” went on Maggie, in her cheerful voice that knew no harm. “I liked every thing—the policemen in their little boxes at the street corners, the officers in their fur coats, the cabmen, every-body. There is something so mysterious about them all. One can easily make up stories about every-body one meets in Petersburg. It is so easy to think that they are not what they seem. Paul, Etta, even you, Herr Steinmetz, may not be what you seem.”
“Yes, that is so,” answered Steinmetz, with a laugh.
“You may be a Nihilist,” pursued Maggie. “You may have bombs concealed up your sleeves; you may exchange mysterious passwords with people in the streets; you may be much less innocent than you appear.”
“All that may be so,” he admitted.
“You may have a revolver in the pocket of your dress-coat,” went on Maggie, pointing to the voluminous garment with her fan.
His hand went to the pocket in question, and produced exactly what she had suggested. He held out his hand with a small silver-mounted revolver lying in the palm of it.
“Even that,” he said, “may be so.”
Maggie looked at it with a sudden curiosity, her bright eyes grave.
“Loaded?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I will not examine it. How curious! I wonder how near to the mark I may have been in other ways.”
“I wonder,” said Steinmetz, looking at Etta. “And now tell us something about the princess. What do you suspect her of?”
At this moment Paul came into the room, distinguished-looking and grave.
“Miss Delafield,” pursued Steinmetz, turning to the new-comer, “is telling us her suspicions about ourselves. I am already as good as condemned to Siberia. She is now about to sit in judgment on the princess.”
Maggie laughed.
“Herr Steinmetz has pleaded guilty to the worst accusation,” she said. “On the other counts I leave him to his own conscience.”
“Any thing but that,” urged Steinmetz.
Paul came forward, and Maggie rather obviously avoided looking at him.
“Tell us of Paul’s crimes first,” said Etta, rather hurriedly. She glanced at the clock, whither Karl Steinmetz’s eyes had also travelled.
“Oh, Paul,” said Maggie, rather indifferently. Indeed, it seemed as if her lightness of heart had suddenly failed her. “Well, perhaps he is deeply involved in schemes for the resurrection of the Polish kingdom, or something of that sort.”
“That sounds tame,” put in Steinmetz. “I think you would construct a better romance respecting the princess. In books it is always the beautiful princesses who are most deeply dyed in crime.”
Maggie opened her fan and closed it again.
“Well,” she said, tapping on the arm of her chair with it; “I give Etta a mysterious past. She is the sort of person who would laugh and dance at a ball with the knowledge that there was a mine beneath the floor.”
“I do not think I am,” said Etta, with a shudder. She rose rather hurriedly, and crossed the room with a great rustle of silks.
“Stop her!” she whispered, as she passed Steinmetz.