Karl Steinmetz had shown the depth of his knowledge of men and women when he commented on that power of facing danger with an unruffled countenance which he was pleased to attribute to English ladies above all women. During the evening he had full opportunity of verifying his own observations.
Etta came down to dinner smiling and imperturbable. On the threshold of the drawing-room she exchanged a glance with Karl Steinmetz; and that was all. At dinner it was Maggie and Paul who were silent. Etta talked to Steinmetz—brightly, gayly, with a certain courage of a very high order; for she was desperate, and she did not show it.
At last the evening came to an end. Maggie had sung two songs. Steinmetz had performed on the piano with a marvellous touch. All had played their parts with the brazen faces which Steinmetz, in his knowledge of many nations, assigned to the Anglo-Saxon race before others.
At last Etta rose to go to bed, with a little sharp sigh of great suspense. It was coming.
She went up to her room, bidding Maggie good-night in the passage. In a mechanical way she allowed the deft-handed maid to array her in a dressing gown—soft, silken, a dainty triumph in its way. Then, almost impatiently, she sent the maid away when her hair was only half released. She would brush it herself. She was tired. No, she wanted nothing more.
She sat down by the fire, brush in hand. She could hardly breathe. It was coming.
She heard Paul come to his dressing-room. She heard his deep, quiet voice reply to some question of his valet’s. Then the word “Good-night” in the same quiet voice. The valet had gone. There was only the door now between her and—what? Her fingers were at the throat of her dressing-gown. The soft lace seemed to choke her.
Then Paul knocked at the door. It was coming. She opened her lips, but at first could make no sound.
“Come in!” she said at length hoarsely.
She wondered whether he would kill her. She wondered whether she was in love with her husband. She had begun wondering that lately; she was wondering it when he came in. He had changed his dress-coat for a silk-faced jacket, in which he was in the habit of working with Steinmetz in the quiet room after the household had gone to bed.
She looked up. She dropped the brush, and ran toward him with a great rustle of her flowing silks.
“Oh, Paul, what is it?” she cried.
She stopped short, not daring to touch him, before his cold, set face.
“Have you seen any one?” she whispered.
“Only De Chauxville,” he answered, “this afternoon.”
“Indeed, Paul,” she protested hastily, “it was nothing. A message from Catrina Lanovitch. It was only the usual visit of an acquaintance. It would have been very strange if he had not called. Do you think I could care for a man like that?”
“I never did think so until now,” returned Paul steadily. “Your excuses accuse you. You may care for him. I do not know; I—do—not—care.”
She turned slowly and went back to her chair.
Mechanically she took up the brush, and shook back her beautiful hair.
“You mean you do not care for me,” she said. “Oh, Paul! be careful.”
Paul stood looking at her. He was not a subtle-minded man at all. He was not one of those who take it upon themselves to say that they understand women—using the word in an offensively general sense, as if women were situated midway between the human and the animal races. He was old-fashioned enough to look upon women as higher and purer than men, while equally capable of thought and self-control. He had, it must be remembered, no great taste for fictional literature. He had not read the voluminous lucubrations of the modern woman writer. He had not assisted at the nauseating spectacle of a woman morally turning herself inside out in three volumes and an interview.
No, this man respected women still; and he paid them an honor which, thank Heaven, most of them still deserve. He treated them as men in the sense that he considered them to be under the same code of right and wrong, of good and evil.
He did not understand what Etta meant when she told him to be careful. He did not know that the modern social code is like the Spanish grammar—there are so many exceptions that the rules are hardly worth noting. And one of our most notorious modern exceptions is the married woman who is pleased to hold herself excused because outsiders tell her that her husband does not understand her.
“I do not think,” said Paul judicially, “that you can have cared very much whether I loved you or not. When you married me you knew that I was the promoter of the Charity League; I almost told you. I told you so much that, with your knowledge, you must have been aware of the fact that I was heavily interested in the undertaking which you betrayed. You married me without certain proof of your husband’s death, such was your indecent haste to call yourself a princess. And now I find, on your own confession, that you have a clandestine understanding with a man who tried to murder me only a week ago. Is it not rather absurd to talk of caring?”
He stood looking down at her, cold and terrible in the white heat of his suppressed Northern anger.
The little clock on the mantel-piece, in a terrible hurry, ticked with all its might. Time was speeding. Every moment was against her. And she could think of nothing to say simply because those things that she would have said to others would carry no weight with this man.
Etta was leaning forward in the luxurious chair, staring with haggard eyes into the fire. The flames leaped up and gleamed on her pale face, in her deep eyes.
“I suppose,” she said, without looking at him, “that you will not believe me when I tell you that I hate the man. I knew nothing of what you refer to as happening last week; his attempt to murder you, I mean. You are a prince, and all-powerful in your own province. Can you not throw him into prison and keep him there? Such things are done in Russia. He is more dangerous than you think. Please do it—please—”
Paul looked at her with hard, unresponsive eyes. Lives depended on his answer.
“I did not come here to discuss Claude de Chauxville,” he said, “but you, and our future.”
Etta drew herself up as one under the lash, and waited with set teeth.
“I propose,” he said, in a final voice which made it no proposition at all, “that you go home to England at once with—your cousin. This country is not safe for you. The house in London will be at your disposal. I will make a suitable settlement on you, sufficient to live in accordance with your title and position. I must ask you to remember that the name you bear has hitherto been an unsullied one. We have been proud of our princesses—up to now. In case of any trouble reaching you from outside sources connected with this country, I should like you to remember that you are under my protection and that of Steinmetz. Either of us will be glad at any time to consider any appeal for assistance that you may think fit to make. You will always be the Princess Howard Alexis.”
Etta gave a sudden laugh.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and her face was strangely red, “I shall still be the Princess Alexis.”
“With sufficient money to keep up the position,” he went on, with the cruel irony of a slow-spoken man.
A queer, twisted smile passed across Etta’s face—the smile of one who is in agony and will not shriek.
“There are certain stipulations which I must make in self-defence,” went on Paul. “I must ask you to cease all communication of whatever nature with the Baron de Chauxville. I am not jealous of him—now. I do not know why.”
He paused, as if wondering what the meaning of this might be. Etta knew it. The knowledge was part of her punishment.
“But,” continued her husband. “I am not going to sacrifice the name my mother bore to the vanity of a French coxcomb. You will be kind enough to avoid all society where it is likely that you should meet him. If you disregard my desires in this matter, I shall be compelled to take means to enforce them.”
“What means?”
“I shall reduce your allowance.”
Their eyes met, and perhaps that was the bitterest moment in Etta’s life. Dead things are better put out of sight at once. Etta felt that Paul’s dead love would grin at her in every sovereign of the allowance which was to be hers. She would never get away from it; she could never shake off its memory.
“Am I to live alone?” asked Etta, suddenly finding her voice.
“That is as you like,” answered Paul, perhaps purposely misunderstanding her. “You are at liberty to have any friend or companion you wish. Perhaps—your cousin.”
“Maggie?”
“Yes,” answered Paul. For the first time since he had entered the room his eyes were averted from Etta’s face.
“She would not live with me,” said the princess curtly.
Paul seemed to be reflecting. When he next spoke it was in a kinder voice.
“You need not tell the circumstances which have given rise to this arrangement.”
Etta shrugged her shoulders.
“That,” went on Paul, “rests entirely with yourself. You may be sure that I will tell no one. I am not likely to discuss it with any one whomsoever.”
Etta’s stony eyes softened for a moment. She seemed to be alternating between hatred of this man and love of him—a dangerous state for any woman. It is possible that, if he had held his hand out to her, she would have been at his feet in a wild, incoherent passion of self-hatred and abasement. Such moments as these turn our lives and determine them. Paul knew nothing of the issue hanging on this moment, on the passing softness of her eyes. He knew nothing of the danger in which this woman stood, of the temptation with which she was wrestling. He went on in his blindness, went on being only just.
“If,” he said, “you have any further questions to ask, I shall always be at your service. For the next few days I shall be busy. The peasants are in a state of discontent verging on rebellion. We cannot at present arrange for your journey to Tver, but as soon as it is possible I will tell you.”
He looked at the clock, and made an imperceptible movement toward the door.
Etta glanced up sharply. She did not seem to be breathing.
“Is that all?” she asked, in a dull voice.
There was a long silence, tense and throbbing, the great silence of the steppe.
“I think so,” answered Paul at length. “I have tried to be just.”
“Then justice is very cruel.”
“Not so cruel as the woman who for a few pounds sells the happiness of thousands of human beings. Steinmetz advised me to speak to you. He suggested the possibility of circumstances of which we are ignorant. He said that you might be able to explain.”
Silence.
“Can you explain?”
Silence. Etta sat looking into the fire. The little clock hurried on. At length Etta drew a deep breath.
“You are the sort of man,” she said, “who does not understand temptation. You are strong. The devil leaves the strong in peace. You have found virtue easy because you have never wanted money. Your position has always been assured. Your name alone is a password through the world. Your sort are always hard on women who—who—What have I done, after all?”
Some instinct bade her rise to her feet and stand before him—tall, beautiful, passionate, a woman in a thousand, a fit mate for such as he. Her beautiful hair in burnished glory round her face gleamed in the firelight. Her white fingers clenched, her arms thrown back, her breast panting beneath the lace, her proud face looking defiance into his—no one but a prince could have braved this princess.
“What have I done?” she cried a second time. “I have only fought for myself, and if I have won, so much the greater credit. I am your wife. I have done nothing the law can touch. Thousands of women moving in our circle are not half so good as I am. I swear before God I am——”
“Hush!” he said, with upraised hand. “I never doubted that.”
“I will do any thing you wish,” she went on, and in her humility she was very dangerous. “I deceived you, I know. But I sold the Charity League before I knew that you—that you thought of me. When I married you I didn’t love you. I admit that. But Paul—oh, Paul, if you were not so good you would understand.”
Perhaps he did understand; for there was that in her eyes that made her meaning clear.
He was silent; standing before her in his great strength, his marvellous and cruel self-restraint.
“You will not forgive me?”
For a moment she leaned forward, peering into his face. He seemed to be reflecting.
“Yes,” he said at length, “I forgive you. But if I cared for you, forgiveness would be impossible.”
He went slowly toward the door. Etta looked round the room with drawn eyes; their room—the room he had fitted up for his bride with the lavishness of a great wealth and a great love.
He paused, with his hand on the door.
“And,” she said, with fiery cheeks, “does your forgiveness date from to-night?”
“Yes!”
He opened the door.
“Good-night!” he said, and went out.
At daybreak the next morning Karl Steinmetz was awakened by the familiar cry of the wolf beneath his window. He rose and dressed hastily. The eastern sky was faintly pink; a rosy twilight moved among the pines. He went down stairs and opened the little door at the back of the castle.
It was, of course, the starosta, shivering and bleached in the chilly dawn.
“They have watched my cottage, Excellency, all night. It was only now that I could get away. There are two strange sleighs outside Domensky’s hut. There are marks of many sleighs that have been and gone. Excellency, it is unsafe for any one to venture outside the castle to-day. You must send to Tver for the soldiers.”
“The prince refuses to do that.”
“But why, Excellency? We shall be killed!”
“You do not know the effect of platoon firing on a closely packed mob, starost. The prince does,” replied Steinmetz, with his grim smile.
They spoke together in hushed voices for half an hour, while the daylight crept up the eastern sky. Then the starosta stole away among the still larches, like the wolf whose cry he imitated so perfectly.
Steinmetz closed the door and went upstairs to his own room, his face grave and thoughtful, his tread heavy with the weight of anxiety.
The day passed as such days do. Etta was not the woman to plead a conventional headache and remain hidden. She came down to breakfast, and during that meal was boldly conversational.
“She has spirit,” reflected Karl Steinmetz behind his quiet gray eyes. He admired her for it, and helped her. He threw back the ball of conversation with imperturbable good humor.
They were completely shut in. No news from the outer world penetrated to the little party besieged within their own stone walls. Maggie, fearless and innocent, announced her intention of snow-shoeing, but was dissuaded therefrom by Steinmetz with covert warnings.
During the morning each was occupied in individual affairs. At luncheon time they met again. Etta was now almost defiant. She was on her mettle. She was so near to loving Paul that a hatred of him welled up within her breast whenever he repelled her advances with uncompromising reticence.
They did not know—perhaps she hardly knew herself—that the opening of the side-door depended upon her humor.
In the afternoon Etta and Maggie sat, as was their wont, in the morning-room looking out over the cliff. Of late their intercourse had been slightly strained. They had never had much in common, although circumstances had thrown their lives together. It is one of the ills to which women are heir that they have frequently to pass their whole lives in the society of persons with whom they have no real sympathy. Both these women were conscious of the little rift within the lute, but such rifts are better treated with silence. That which comes to interfere with a woman’s friendship will not often bear discussion.
At dusk Steinmetz went out. He had an appointment with the starosta.
Paul was sitting in his own room, making a pretence of work, about five o’clock, when Steinmetz came hurriedly to him.
“A new development,” he said shortly. “Come to my room.”
Paul rose and followed him through the double doorway built in the thickness of the wall.
Steinmetz’s large room was lighted only by a lamp standing on the table. All the light was thrown on the desk by a large green shade, leaving the rest of the room in a semi-darkness.
At the far end of the room a man was standing in an expectant attitude. There was something furtive about this intruder, and at the same time familiar to Paul, who peered at him through the gloom.
Then the man came hurriedly forward.
“Ah, Pavlo, Pavlo!” he said in a deep, hollow voice. “I could not expect you to know me.”
He threw his arms around him, and embraced him after the simple manner of Russia. Then he held him at arm’s length.
“Stipan!” said Paul. “No, I did not know you.”
Stipan Lanovitch was still holding him at arm’s length, examining him with the large faint blue eyes which so often go with an exaggerated philanthropy.
“Old,” he muttered, “old! Ah, my poor Pavlo! I heard in Kiew—you know how we outlaws hear such things—that you were in trouble, so I came to you.”
Steinmetz in the background raised his patient eyebrows.
“There are two men in the world,” went on the voluble Lanovitch, “who can manage the moujiks of Tver—you and I; so I came. I will help you, Pavlo; I will stand by you. Together we can assuredly quell this revolt.”
Paul nodded, and allowed himself to be embraced a second time. He had long known Stipan Lanovitch of Thors as one of the many who go about the world doing good with their eyes shut. For the moment he had absolutely no use for this well-meaning blunderer.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that it has got beyond control. We cannot stamp it out now except by force, and I would rather not do that. Our only hope is that it may burn itself out. The talkers must get hoarse in time.”
Lanovitch shook his head.
“They have been talking since the days of Ananias,” he said, “and they are not hoarse yet. I fear, Pavlo, there will never be peace in the world until the talkers are hoarse.”
“How did you get here?” asked Paul, who was always businesslike.
“I brought a pack on my back and sold cotton. I made myself known to the starosta, and he communicated with good Karl here.”
“Did you learn any thing in the village?” asked Paul.
“No; they suspected me. They would not talk. But I understand them, Pavlo, these poor simple fools. A pebble in the stream would turn the current of their convictions. Tell them who is the Moscow doctor. It is your only chance.”
Steinmetz grunted acquiescence and walked wearily to the window. This was only an old and futile argument of his own.
“And make it impossible for me to live another day among them,” said Paul. “Do you think St. Petersburg would countenance a prince who works among his moujiks?”
Stipan Lanovitch’s pale blue eyes looked troubled. Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders.
“They have brought it on themselves,” he said.
“As much as a lamb brings the knife upon itself by growing up,” replied Paul.
Lanovitch shook his white head with a tolerant little smile. He loved these poor helpless peasants with a love as large as and a thousand times less practical than Paul’s.
In the meantime Paul was thinking in his clear, direct way. It was this man’s habit in life and in thought to walk straight past the side issues.
“It is like you, Stipan,” he said at length, “to come to us at this time. We feel it, and we recognize the generosity of it, for Steinmetz and I know the danger you are running in coming back to this country. But we cannot let you do it—No, do not protest. It is quite out of the question. We might quell the revolt; no doubt we should—the two of us together. But what would happen afterward? You would be sent back to Siberia, and I should probably follow you for harboring an escaped convict.”
The face of the impulsive philanthropist dropped pathetically. He had come to his friend’s assistance on the spur of the moment. He was destined, as some men are, to plunge about the world seeking to do good. And it has been decreed that good must be done by stealth and after deliberation only. He who does good on the spur of the moment usually sows a seed of dissension in the trench of time.
“Also,” went on Paul, with that deliberate grasp of the situation which never failed to astonish the ready-witted Steinmetz; “also, you have other calls upon your energy. You have other work to do.”
Lanovitch’s broad face lightened up; his benevolent brow beamed. His capacity for work had brought him to the shoemaker’s last in Tomsk. It is a vice that grows with indulgence.
“It has pleased the Authorities,” went on Paul, who was shy of religious turns of phrase, “to give us all our own troubles. Mine—such as they are, Stipan—must be managed by myself. Yours can be faced by no one but you. You have come at the right moment. You do not quite realize what your coming means to Catrina.”
“Catrina! Ah!”
The weak blue eyes looked into the strong face and read nothing there.
“I doubt,” said Paul, “whether it is right for you to continue sacrificing Catrina for the sake of the little good that you are able to do. You are hampered in your good work to such an extent that the result is very small, while the pain you give is very great.”
“But is that so, Pavlo? Is my child unhappy?”
“I fear so,” replied Paul gravely, with his baffling self-restraint. “She has not much in common with her mother, you understand.”
“Ah, yes!”
“It is you to whom she is attached. Sometimes it is so with children and parents. One cannot tell why.”
Steinmetz looked as if he could supply information upon the subject: but he remained silent, standing, as it were, in an acquiescent attitude.
“You have fought your fight,” said Paul. “A good fight, too. You have struck your blow for the country. You have sown your seed, but the harvest is not yet. Now it is time to think of your own safety, of the happiness of your own child.”
Stipan Lanovitch turned away and sat heavily down. He leaned his two arms on the table, and his chin upon his clenched hands.
“Why not leave the country now; at all events for a few years?” went on Paul, and when a man who is accustomed to command stoops to persuade, it is strong persuasion that he wields. “You can take Catrina with you. You will be assuring her happiness, which, at all events, is something tangible—a present harvest! I will drive over to Thors now and bring her back. You can leave to-night and go to America.”
Stipan Lanovitch raised his head and looked hard into Paul’s face.
“You wish it?”
“I think,” answered Paul steadily, “that it is for Catrina’s happiness.”
Then Lanovitch rose up and took Paul’s hand in his work-stained grip.
“Go, my son! It will be a great happiness to me. I will wait here,” he said.
Paul went straight to the door. He was a man with a capacity for prompt action, which seemed to rise to demand. Steinmetz followed him out into the passage and took him by the arm.
“You cannot do it,” he said.
“Yes, I can,” replied Paul. “I can find my way through the forest. No one will venture to follow me there in the dark.”
Steinmetz hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, and went back into the room.
The ladies at Thors were dressed for dinner—were, indeed, awaiting the announcement of that meal—when Paul broke in upon their solitude. He did not pause to lay aside his furs, but went into the long, low room, withdrawing his seal gloves painfully, for it was freezing as it only can freeze in March.
The countess assailed him with many questions, more or less sensible, which he endured patiently until the servant had left the room. Catrina, with flushed cheeks, stood looking at him, but said nothing.
Paul withdrew his gloves and submitted to the countess’ futile tugs at his fur coat. Then Catrina spoke.
“The Baron de Chauxville has left us,” she said, without knowing exactly why.
For the moment Paul had forgotten Claude de Chauxville’s existence.
“I have news for you,” he said; and he gently pushed the chattering countess aside. “Stipan Lanovitch is at Osterno. He arrived to-night.”
“Ah, they have set him free, poor man! Does he wear chains on his ankles—is his hair long? My poor Stipan! Ah, but what a stupid man!”
The countess collapsed into a soft chair. She chose a soft one, obviously. It has to be recorded here that she did not receive the news with unmitigated joy.
“When he was in Siberia,” she gasped, “one knew at all events where he was; and now, mon Dieu! what an anxiety!”
“I have come over to see whether you will join him to-night and go with him to America,” said Paul, looking at her.
“To—America—to-night! My dear Paul, are you mad? One cannot do such things as that. America! that is across the sea.”
“Yes,” answered Paul.
“And I am such a bad sailor. Now, if it had been Paris——”
“But it cannot be,” interrupted Paul. “Will you join your father to-night?” he added, turning to Catrina.
The girl was looking at him with something in her eyes that he did not care to meet.
“And go to America?” she asked, in a lifeless voice.
Paul nodded.
Catrina turned suddenly away from him and walked to the fire, where she stood with her back toward him—a small, uncouth figure in black and green, the lamplight gleaming on her wonderful hair. She turned suddenly again, and, coming back, stood looking into his face.
“I will go,” she said. “You think it best?”
“Yes,” he answered; “I think it best.”
She drew a sharp breath and was about to speak when the countess interrupted her.
“What!” she cried. “You are going away to-night like this, without any luggage! And pray what is to become of me?”
“You can join them in America,” said Paul, in his quietest tone. “Or you can live in Paris, at last.”
It was not now a very cold night. There were fleecy clouds thrown like puffs of smoke against the western sky. The moon, on the wane,—a small crescent lying on its back,—was lowering toward the horizon. The thermometer had risen since sunset, as it often does in March. There was a suggestion of spring in the air. It seemed that at last the long winter was drawing to a close; that the iron grip of frost was relaxing.
Paul went out and inspected the harness by the light of a stable lantern held in the mittened hand of a yemschick. He had reasons of his own for absenting himself while Catrina bade her mother farewell. He was rather afraid of these women.
The harness inspected, he began reckoning how many hours of moonlight might still be vouchsafed to him. The stableman, seeing the direction of his gaze, began to talk of the weather and the possibilities of snow in the near future. They conversed in low voices together.
Presently the door opened and Catrina came quickly out, followed by a servant carrying a small hand-bag.
Paul could not see Catrina’s face. She was veiled and furred to the eyelids. Without a word the girl took her seat in the sleigh, and the servant prepared the bear-skin rugs. Paul gathered up the reins and took his place beside her. A few moments were required to draw up the rugs and fasten them with straps; then Paul gave the word and the horses leaped forward.
As they sped down the avenue Catrina turned and looked her last on Thors.
Before long Paul wheeled into the trackless forest. He had come very carefully, steering chiefly by the moon and stars, with occasional assistance from a bend of the winding river. At times he had taken to the ice, following the course of the stream for a few miles. No snow had fallen; it would be easy to return on his own track. Through this part of the forest no road was cut.
For nearly half an hour they drove in silence. Only the whistle of the iron-bound runners on the powdery snow, the creak of the warming leather on the horses, the regular breathing of the team, broke the stillness of the forest. Paul hoped against hope that Catrina was asleep. She sat by his side, her arm touching his sleeve, her weight thrown against him at such times as the sleigh bumped over a fallen tree or some inequality of the ground.
He could not help wondering what thoughts there were behind her silence. Steinmetz’s good-natured banter had come back to his memory, during the last few days, in a new light.
“Paul,” said the woman at his side quite suddenly, breaking the silence of the great forest where they had grown to life and sorrow almost side by side.
“Yes.”
“I want to know how this all came about. It is not my father’s doing. There is something quick, and practical, and wise which suggests you and Herr Steinmetz. I suspect that you have done this—you and he—for our happiness.”
“No,” answered Paul; “it was mere accident. Your father heard of our trouble in Kiew. You know him—always impulsive and reckless. He never thinks of the danger. He came to help us.”
Catrina smiled wanly.
“But itisfor our happiness, is it not, Paul? You know that it is—that is why you have done it. I have not had time yet to realize what I am doing, all that is going to happen. But if it is your doing, I think I shall be content to abide by the result.”
“It is not my doing,” replied Paul, who did not like her wistful tone. “It is the outcome of circumstances. Circumstances have been ruling us all lately. We seem to have no time to consider, but only to do that which seems best for the moment.”
“And it is best that I should go to America with my father?” Her voice was composed and quiet. In the dim light he could not see her white lips; indeed, he never looked.
“It seems so to me, undoubtedly,” he said. “In doing this, so far as we can see at present, it seems certain that you are saving your father from Siberia. You know what he is; he never thinks of his own safety. He ought never to have come here to-night. If he remains in Russia, it is an absolute certainty that he will sooner or later be rearrested. He is one of those good people who require saving from themselves.”
Catrina nodded. At times duty is the kedge-anchor of happiness. The girl was dimly aware that she was holding to this. She was simple and unsophisticated enough to consider Paul’s opinion infallible. At the great cross-roads of life we are apt to ask the way of any body who happens to be near. Catrina might perhaps have made a worse choice of counsel, for Paul was honest.
“As you put it,” she said, “it is clearly my duty. There is a sort of consolation in that, however painful it may be at the time. I suppose it is consolatory to look back and think that at all events one did one’s duty.”
“I don’t know,” answered Paul simply; “I suppose so.”
Looking back was not included in his method of life, which was rather characterized by a large faith and a forward pressure. Whenever there was question of considering life as an abstract, he drew within his shell with a manlike shyness. He had no generalities ready for each emergency.
“Would father have gone alone?” she asked, with a very human thrill of hope in her voice.
“No,” answered Paul steadily, “I think not. But you can ask him.”
They had never been so distant as they were at this moment—so cold, such mere acquaintances. And they had played together in one nursery.
“Of course, if that is the case,” said the girl, “my duty is quite clear.”
“It required some persuasion to make him consent to go, even with you,” said Paul.
A rough piece of going—for there was no road—debarred further conversation at this time. The sleigh rolled and bumped over one fallen tree after another. Paul, with his feet stretched out, wedged firmly into the sleigh, encouraged the tired horses with rein and voice. Catrina was compelled to steady herself with both hands on the bar of the apron; for the apron of a Russian sleigh is a heavy piece of leather stretched on a wooden bar.
“Then you think my duty is quite clear?” repeated the girl at length.
Paul did not answer at once.
“I am sure of it,” he said.
And there the question ended. Catrina Lanovitch, who had never been ruled by those about her, shaped her whole life unquestioningly upon an opinion.
They did not speak for some time, and then it was the girl who broke the silence.
“I have a confession to make and a favor to ask,” she said bluntly.
Paul’s attitude denoted attention, but he said nothing.
“It is about the Baron de Chauxville,” she said.
“Ah!”
“I am a coward,” she went on. “I did not know it before. It is rather humiliating. I have been trying for some weeks to tell you something, but I am horribly afraid of it. I am afraid you will despise me. I have been a fool—worse, perhaps. I never knew that Claude de Chauxville was the sort of person he is. I allowed him to find out things about me which he never should have known—my own private affairs, I mean. Then I became frightened, and he tried to make use of me. I think he makes use of every-body.Youknow what he is.”
“Yes,” answered Paul, “I know.”
“He hates you,” she went on. “I do not want to make mischief, but I suppose he wanted to marry the princess. His vanity was wounded because she preferred you, and he wanted to be avenged upon you. Wounds to the vanity never heal. I do not know how he did it, Paul, but he made me help him in his schemes. I could have prevented you from going to the bear hunt, for I suspected him then. I could have prevented my mother from inviting him to Thors. I could have put a thousand difficulties in his way, but I did not. I helped him. I told him about the people and who were the worst—who had been influenced by the Nihilists and who would not work. I allowed him to stay on here and carry out his plan. All this trouble among the peasants is his handiwork. He has organized a regular rising against you. He is horribly clever. He left us yesterday, but I am convinced that he is in the neighborhood still.”
She stopped and reflected. There was something wanting in the story, which she could not supply. It was a motive. A half-confession is almost an impossibility. When we speak of ourselves it must be all or nothing—preferably, nothing.
“I do not know why I did it,” she said. “It was a sort of period I went through. I cannot explain.”
He did not ask her to do so. They were singularly like brother and sister in their mental attitude. They had driven through twenty miles of forest which belonged to one or other of them. Each was touched by the intangible, inexplicable dignity that belongs to the possession of great lands—to the inheritance of a great name.
“That is the confession,” she said.
He gave a little laugh.
“If none of us had worse than that upon our consciences,” he answered, “there would be little harm in the world, De Chauxville’s schemes have only hurried on a crisis which was foreordained. The progress of humanity cannot be stayed. They have tried to stay it in this country. They will go on trying until the crash comes. What is the favor you have to ask?”
“You must leave Osterno,” she urged earnestly; “it is unsafe to delay even a few hours. M. de Chauxville said there would be no danger. I believed him then, but I do not now. Besides, I know the peasants. They are hard to rouse, but once excited they are uncontrollable. They are afraid of nothing. You must get away to-night.”
Paul made no answer.
She turned slowly in her seat and looked into his face by the light of the waning moon.
“Do you mean that you will not go?”
He met her glance with his grave, slow smile.
“There is no question of going,” he answered. “You must know that.”
She did not attempt to persuade. Perhaps there was something in his voice which she as a Russian understood—a ring of that which we call pig-headedness in others.
“It must be splendid to be a man,” she said suddenly, in a ringing voice. “One feeling in me made me ask you the favor, while another was a sense of gladness at your certain refusal. I wish I was a man. I envy you. You do not know how I envy you, Paul.”
Paul gave a quiet laugh—such a laugh as one hears in the trenches after the low hum of a passing ball.
“If it is danger you want, you will have more than I in the next week,” he answered. “Steinmetz and I knew that you were the only woman in Russia who could get your father safely out of the country. That is why I came for you.”
The girl did not answer at once. They were driving on the road again now, and the sleigh was running smoothly.
“I suppose,” she said reflectively at length, “that the secret of the enormous influence you exercise over all who come in contact with you is that you drag the best out of every one—the best that is in them.”
Paul did not answer.
“What is that light?” she asked suddenly, laying her hand on the thick fur of his sleeve. She was not nervous, but very watchful. “There—straight in front.”
“It is the sleigh,” replied Paul, “with your father and Steinmetz. I arranged that they should meet us at the cross-roads. You must be at the Volga before daylight. Send the horses on to Tver. I have given you Minna and The Warrior; they can do the journey with one hour’s rest, but you must drive them.”
Catrina had swayed forward against the bar of the apron in a strange way, for the road was quite smooth. She placed her gloved hands on the bar and held herself upright with a peculiar effort.
“What?” said Paul. For she had made an inarticulate sound.
“Nothing,” she answered. Then, after a pause, “I did not know that we were to go so soon. That was all.”