CHAPTER VIIITHE PRINCESS OF HEARTS
BUT first came Alice. Snow was upon her light fluffy hair and her long fur coat, and her cheeks were pink with the cold and her eyes bright with the excitement of this first meeting between father and fiancé. Next came her mother, her matronly figure amplified by her thick Russian coat, exultant satisfaction on her proud face—the sense of having triumphantly done the thing she had started out to do. And behind them came the prince, whom the two had met at the entrance of the hotel.
The great financier took the slender hand of his ancient-blooded son-in-law. He looked him keenly over, all the while the words of getting acquainted were being exchanged—looked him over with growing satisfaction. The prince was a man, despite his forty years, who well might capture a young girl’s fancy. He was straight, with the easy grace of a courtier, and wore a dark green uniform of a colonel of the Czar’s Guards, with a heavy festoon of gold braid across his breast and with high patent-leather boots. He was the acme of ancient lineage and high breeding; his face was pale, his lips andnostrils were thin, his black moustache had just the proper upward lift, his slight baldness only made more suggestive of power a forehead naturally large, and the great scar on his left cheek (a Heidelberg scar) that might have disfigured a coarser man only added to his distinguished air. Diplomat, soldier, art connoisseur, student, it was said of him that the Czar’s domain held no more polished gentleman. No wonder Alice admired and her father was satisfied; this was no mere hang-lipped, chinless, stuttering, penniless title.
After the formal words natural to the situation had all been said, the talk ran to other matters—first to the house party the prince was giving in the Howards’ honour, and then to a ball which they all expected to attend that night at the palace of Prince Valenko, the military governor.
Alice turned to Drexel. “You are fortunate, Henry, to get back in time to meet Princess Valenko.”
“I think I shall not go,” he returned. Only one woman interested him, and she was of a sort far different from this great lady.
“Not go!” cried his aunt. “You must not miss meeting the princess!”
“No,” added Alice, darting a quick look at the prince, “you must not fail to meet Princess Valenko.”
“And what is so wonderful about this Princess Valenko?” put in Mr. Howard.
“She’s the handsomest young woman in St. Petersburg—so they say,” returned Alice, witha sceptical toss of her head. “We’ve heard nothing but Princess Valenko ever since we entered Russia.”
Again she darted a look at Berloff. The prince knew well the meaning of this glance; it was an open secret that he had been a suitor for the princess, and she had refused him. But he met Alice’s challenging look with an impassive smile.
“Also she is my cousin,” said he to Mr. Howard. But, he did not add, cousin on his mother’s side, and so of far older stock than he.
“Her father is the military governor of St. Petersburg,” added Mrs. Howard. “They say she is the proudest, haughtiest young—I beg your pardon, prince, but that’s just what people say.” She looked at her husband. “We haven’t met her yet. She has been travelling in France, Italy and Germany, and she returned only to-day.”
“I saw her,” Alice announced.
“You were at her house?” asked the prince.
“No. I was out driving this morning and I chanced to go near the Warsaw Station just after the Berlin Express had arrived. She had just come in from Berlin. I saw her drive by.”
“Was she as beautiful as people say?” Drexel asked mechanically.
Alice sniffed. “Oh, I suppose some men might think her moderately good-looking. Judge for yourself when you see her to-night.”
“You will have an even better chance to judge her day after to-morrow,” said the prince. “Shehas just written that she is coming to the house party.”
At this moment Countess Baronova, sweeping past, bowed to them. “And you are coming, too, countess?” added the prince.
She paused. “Coming to what?”
“To my house party.”
“Of course. Your parties, prince, are the sort one cannot afford to miss.”
They asked her to join the group, and as Freeman at this moment came up with her coat upon his arm, they could but include him in the invitation. Drexel felt a shiver as the lean, dark correspondent sat down among them; and he could but wonder what these women would think, what the prince would think, if they knew what he knew. Drexel watched him covertly. The lean, lithe grace of his figure, the reposeful alertness of his gleaming eyes, the cool indifference with which he met the prince’s thinly hid disdain—all these bore it in upon him again that here was a man who respected no one, who feared no one.
It was not long ere these qualities had exemplification. The three women presently withdrew, and Mr. Howard began to question the prince about Russia’s political situation. The prince answered that the Czar was kindly, that he loved his people and did only what was best for them; but like a father with an unruly son he had to chastise where he loved. As for the trouble, that was all madeby the country’s scum—and it would be best for the country if it were exterminated.
Freeman’s eyes had begun to blaze. “Your last statement, prince, is quite true,” he said quietly. “Yet it is altogether misleading.”
“Misleading?” the prince queried coldly.
“Yes. You neglected to inform Mr. Howard that the trouble-making scum whose extermination would so benefit the country, is where the scum always is—at the top.”
“You mean?” said the prince.
“I mean the officials, the nobility—and royalty, if you please.”
The prince gave a start and slowly wet his thin lips. Drexel held his breath, and waited what should come next. He knew what temper of a man was the terrorist; and he knew, too, that a man who had merely refused to rise when the Czar had been toasted in a restaurant had been shot dead in his chair by an officer opposite—and the officer had been acquitted.
“Do you not think,” said the prince, with a steel-like edge to his voice, “that you are speaking a little rashly, considering you are in Russia?”
The terrorist was leaning insouciantly back in his chair, but his eyes were flaming. “An American, sir,” said he, “is not afraid to speak the truth, no matter in what tyrant’s land he finds himself.”
The prince’s face darkened. He again wet hislips, his long interlocked hands tightened and his eyes gleamed back into the terrorist’s.
“My advice to you, sir,” and there was an ominous threat in his voice, “and to all other foreign scribblers, is to keep a quieter tongue in your head!”
“You think you can cow me?” said Freeman, a contemptuous, defiant sneer upon his lips. “You can kill me—yes. But let me tell you, all you blood-sucking officials, all you nation-crushing aristocrats, you, and your snivelling, cowardly, blood-drenched little Czar——”
Berloff sprang to his feet. “What, you insult the Czar!” and like the dart of a serpent his hand flashed across the table and struck Freeman full in the mouth.
Freeman shot up like a released spring, his dark face livid, and made to hurl himself upon the prince. Drexel seized an arm. Its tense muscles were like steel wire, and it flung him aside with one violent sweep, and again the terrorist made for the prince. For an instant Drexel feared for Berloff’s life; but officers from an adjoining table threw themselves upon the terrorist, and a moment later he was securely held by gendarmes. He struggled and hurled fierce defiance at the prince, who stood erect and impassive, with just the faintest tinge in his white cheeks.
“You’ll remember this!” cried the terrorist, darkly.
Berloff did not answer—gazed at him with coldcontempt as he was bundled out. Perhaps he did remember—perhaps not. But afterward Drexel remembered—and remembered well.
This sudden flare-up of passion drew upon them the curious stare of the dozens of people in the cafe, and the terrorist had not been five minutes gone before the other three withdrew, the prince going to the apartment he maintained for his occasional St. Petersburg visits, and Drexel and his uncle mounting to their rooms above. His uncle asked about Freeman, and Drexel told what was common knowledge, holding back the sinister information he had gained in Three Saints’ Court; for he had decided to say nothing, for the present at least, of his adventure with the young woman and the experiences into which it had led him.
They had just finished dinner—at which the prince had joined them—when a card was handed to Drexel. He looked at it, and for a moment hesitated.
“I’ll see him,” he said to the servant. “Have him shown to my sitting-room.”
He excused himself and left the Howards’ apartment for his own quarters. He paced the room excitedly. Perhaps here was a clue through which he might find the young woman! But he was cool enough when the visitor entered.
“Will you be seated, Mr. Freeman,” said he calmly.
“Thank you,” said the correspondent, taking theindicated chair. “I dare say you are surprised to see me at liberty, after what just happened. Were I a Russian I should not be; but Russia is careful how she treats citizens of powerful foreign countries.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “But enough of that. I have come on what I hope will prove an acceptable matter of business to you; on what is to me a matter of humanity, and— But we’ll pass my motives. May I trouble you for two minutes?”
“You may,” said Drexel.
Freeman drew his chair nearer. “I must begin by taking you into my confidence, a confidence I know you will respect. My real purpose in Russia is actively to help the revolutionists in their struggle. Perhaps you wonder at my confiding in a person who is to be the cousin of Prince Berloff. But I believe I am shrewd enough to have seen that no love is lost between Prince Berloff and yourself. Am I right?”
“Go on,” said Drexel.
“Well, then—let me tell you that I am in close touch with the revolutionists. The revolution is bound to succeed. But what it needs just now is money—money for arms. To gain liberty for their country the revolutionists can afford to pay a hundred per cent.—yes, a thousand per cent. Now to come straight to the point: would you consider undertaking to secure some large sum for the revolutionists, in return for which an authorized committee would bind themselves to give you certainbusiness privileges and properties now controlled by the present Government—land, railroads, mines, and such? Would you consider it?”
A week before, had Drexel seen definite prospect of the revolutionists’ success, he would have leaped at this as a wonderful business opportunity. But it was quite another influence that now determined his reply. Freeman had been in conference with Sonya and her friends; he was going to be in further conference with them; to enter into this plan, even if he chose not to carry it out, would mean that somehow he would again come into contact with Sonya.
“I would consider it,” he answered.
“Would you meet with a duly authorized committee to talk it over?”
“Yes.” He thought of the conference he had witnessed four nights since, and he wondered if he would come before the same group. “Meet where?” he asked.
“I am supposed not to give the address, and I would rather not.”
“As you like,” Drexel returned stiffly. “But either I know where I am going, or I do not go.”
“Oh, very well;” and Freeman gave the address of the house in Three Saints’ Court. He rose. “This of course has been only a preliminary talk. I shall see you again in the course of two or three days. Good-night.”
Drexel, preoccupied with this new chance of his finding again the girl he loved, returned to the Howards’ apartment, and found them prepared to start to the ball at Prince Valenko’s. In his present mood he shrank from that brilliant show. He preferred to remain at home, kept company by thoughts of a beautiful, spirited young woman in the coarse, shapeless clothing of a factory girl. He tried to beg off; but Alice would not hear of losing a convenient cavalier whom she might have need of—and his uncle demanded, if he did not go, with whom was he to talk, with nobody around him except people that spoke only French and this fizz and pin-wheel business that they called Russian? So Drexel could do nothing but consent and follow to the carriage.
They drove past the Winter Palace, empty of royalty, for the Czar, in fear of those he ruled, dared not trust his person there—past huge grand-ducal palaces—and presently they entered a great mansion that looked forth upon the ice-bound Neva. Drexel was well accustomed to the luxury of the rich Russian nobility, but even he, with his double reason for being dull to impressions, could but note that he had been in no house so rich as this. And he recognized that, save for the Czar and his immediate family, there were none prouder and higher in all the empire than these haughty men whose breasts were a blaze of orders and these haughty women who seemed to walk amid a moving fire of jewels.And of them all, he well knew, none had lineage older, nobler, than Princess Valenko.
Drexel did not see the princess upon his entry, for interest in the famed beauty, long absent abroad, was high, and she had been swept aside into one of the drawing-rooms by an admiring group and was there the prisoner of her guests. Drexel ascended to the brilliant ball-room. A little later, while he was standing with his uncle and Prince Berloff, General Valenko, recognizing Berloff, paused a moment beside them. The military governor was straight, gray-haired, gray-bearded, a splendid figure of a soldier-statesman at sixty-five, his bearing and every feature marked with that pride which unbends only to equals, with strength, decision, dominance. There was also that in his face and bearing which suggested that his character was fibred with pitiless severity—with that despotic severity which becomes a mere matter of course after a lifetime of service to the most autocratic and cruel of Christian governments.
“You would not think to look at him, would you,” said Drexel after the general had passed on, taking Berloff with him, “that he loves his daughter more than he does his life? Yet that is what people say.”
Mr. Howard’s glance followed the straight, proud figure. “He looks to me more like that old Roman party—what do you call him, Brutus—that ordered his own son executed. The girl must be a wonder.”
“They say half the best young nobility of Russia have proposed to her—and been refused.”
“A sort of queen of hearts—eh?”
“You guessed close, uncle, to what they call her. She is known as ‘The Princess of Hearts.’”
“Well,” grumbled his uncle, “I wish she’d step lively. I’m getting anxious to see her.”
And so was Drexel, a little, even if his heart did belong to a woman of quite a different station.
But they had not long to wait. Of a sudden there fell a hush, and into the room through the wide entrance at the farther end, upon the arm of the gray, erect Prince Valenko, there swept a tall slender young woman in a shimmering, lacy gown, with gems twinkling from her corsage, from her throat, from the tiara on her high-done hair. Her chin was held high, her eyes swept the room with cold hauteur, in her every movement was knowledge of her ancient princely blood and of her peerless beauty.
“Well, well!” breathed Mr. Howard. “The Princess of Hearts—I should say so!”
The sudden clutch of Drexel’s hand made him turn. “Hello, there—what’s wrong?”
Drexel, suddenly cold, stood with bulging eyes fixed upon her. For four nights before she had worn a factory girl’s shawl and jacket, and he had told her that he loved her!