She spoke the words shortly and sharply. Surreptitious good is so rare, that when it is found out it very naturally gets mixed up with secret evil, and the perpetrator of the hidden good deed feels guilty of a crime. Paul was in this lamentable position, which he proceeded to further aggravate by seeking to excuse himself.

"I did it after mature consideration. I tried paying another man, but he shirked his work and showed the white feather; so Steinmetz and I concluded that there was nothing to be done but do our dirty work ourselves."

"Which, being translated, means that you do it."

"Pardon me. Steinmetz does his share."

Catrina Lanovitch was essentially a woman, despite her somewhat masculine frame. She settled Karl Steinmetz's account with a sniff of contempt.

"And that is why you have been so fond of Osterno the last two years?" she asked innocently.

"Yes," he answered, falling into the trap.

Catrina winced. One does not wince the less because the pain is expected. The girl had the Slav instinct of self-martyrdom, which makes Russians so very different from the pleasure-loving nations of Europe.

"Only that?" she enquired.

Paul glanced down at her.

"Yes," he answered quietly.

They walked on in silence for a few moments. Paul seemed tacitly to have given up the idea of visiting any more of the stricken cottages. They were going toward the long old house, which was called the castle more by courtesy than by right.

"How long are you going to stay in Osterno?" asked Catrina at length.

"About a fortnight; I cannot stay longer. I am going to be married."

Catrina stopped dead. She stood for a moment looking at the ground with a sort of wonder in her eyes, not pleasant to see. It was the look of one who, having fallen from a great height, is not quite sure whether it means death or not. Then she walked on.

"I congratulate you," she said. "I only hope she will make you happy. She is—beautiful, I suppose?"

"Yes," answered Paul simply.

The girl nodded her head.

"What is her name?"

"Etta Sydney Bamborough."

Catrina had evidently never heard the name before. It conveyed nothing to her. Womanlike, she went back to her first question.

"What is she like?"

Paul hesitated.

"Tall, I suppose?" suggested the stunted woman at his side.

"Yes."

"And graceful?"

"Yes."

"Has she—pretty hair?" asked Catrina.

"I think so—yes."

"You are not observant," said the girl in a singularly even and emotionless voice. "Perhaps you never noticed."

"Not particularly," answered Paul.

The girl raised her face. There was a painful smile twisting her lips. The moonlight fell upon her; the deep shadows beneath the eyes made her face wear a grin. Some have seen such a grin on the face of a drowning man—a sight not to be forgotten.

"Where does she live?" asked Catrina. She was unaware of the thought of murder that was in her own heart. Nevertheless, the desire—indefinite, shapeless—was there to kill this woman, who was tall and beautiful, whom Paul Alexis loved.

It must be remembered in extenuation that Catrina Lanovitch had lived nearly all her life in the province of Tver. She was not modern at all. Deprived of the advantages of our enlightened society press, without the benefit of our decadent fictional literature, she had lamentably narrow views of life. She was without that deep philosophy which teaches you, mademoiselle, who read this guileless tale, that nothing matters very much; that love is but a passing amusement, the plaything of an hour; that if Tom is faithless, Dick is equally amusing; while Harry's taste in gloves and compliments is worthy of some consideration. That these things be true—that at all events the modern young lady thinks them true—is a matter of no doubt whatever. Has not the modern lady novelist told us so? And is not the modern lady novelist notable for her close observation of human nature, her impartial judgment of human motives, her sublime truth of delineation when she sits down to describe the thing she calls a man? By a close study of the refined feminine literature of the day the modern young lady acquires not only the knowledge of some startling social delinquencies—retailed, not as if they were quite the exception, but as if they were quite the correct thing—but also she will learn that she is human. She will realize how utterly absurd it is to attempt to be any thing else. If persons in books, she will reflect, are not high-minded or pure-minded, or even clean-minded, it is useless for an ordinary person out of a book to attempt to be any of these.

This is the lesson of some new writers, and Catrina Lanovitch had, fortunately enough, lacked the opportunity of learning it.

She only knew that she loved Paul, and that what she wanted was Paul's love to go with her all through her life. She was not self-analytical, nor subtle, nor given to thinking about her own thoughts. Perhaps she was old-fashioned enough to be romantic. If this be so, we must bear with her romance, remembering that, at all events, romance serves to elevate, while realism tends undoubtedly toward deterioration.

Catrina hated Etta Sydney Bamborough with a simple half-barbaric hatred because she had gained the love of Paul Alexis. Etta had taken away from her the only man whom Catrina could ever love all through her life. The girl was simple enough, unsophisticated enough, never to dream of compromise. She never for a moment entertained the cheap, consolatory thought that in time she would get over it; she would marry somebody else, and make that compromise which is responsible for more misery in this world than ever is vice. In her great solitude, growing to womanhood as she had in the vast forest of Tver, she had learned nearly all that she knew from the best teacher, Nature; and she held the strange, effete theory that it is wicked for a woman to marry a man she does not love, or to marry at all for any reason except love. St. Paul and a few others held like theories, but nous avons change tout cela.

"Where does she live?" asked Catrina.

"In London."

They walked on in silence for a few moments. They were walking slowly, and they presently heard the footsteps of Karl Steinmetz and the servant close behind them.

"I wonder," said Catrina, half to herself, "whether she loves you?"

It was a question, but not one that a man can answer. Paul said nothing, but walked gravely on by the side of this woman, who knew that even if Etta Sydney Bamborough should try she could never love him as she herself did.

When Karl Steinmetz joined them they were silent.

"I suppose," he said in English, "that we may rely upon the discretion of the Frauelein Catrina?"

"Yes," answered the girl; "you may, so far as Osterno is concerned. But I would rather that you did not visit our people here. It is too dangerous in several ways."

"Ah!" murmured Steinmetz, respectfully acquiescent. He was looking straight in front of him, with an expression of countenance which was almost dense. "Then we must bow to your decision," he went on, turning toward the tall man striding along at his side.

"Yes," said Paul simply.

Steinmetz smiled grimly to himself. It was one of his half-cynical theories that women hold the casting vote in all earthly matters, and when an illustration such as this came to prove the correctness of his deductions, he only smiled. He was not by nature a cynic—only by the force of circumstances.

"Will you come to the castle?" asked the girl at length, and Steinmetz by a gesture deferred the decision to Paul.

"I think not to-night, thanks," said the latter. "We will take you as far as the gate."

Catrina made no comment. When the tall gate-way was reached she stopped, and they all became aware of the sound of horses' feet behind them.

"What is this?" asked Catrina.

"Only the starosta bringing our horses," replied Steinmetz. "He has discovered nothing."

Catrina nodded and held out her hand.

"Good-night," she said, rather coldly. "Your secret is safe with me."

"Set a thief to catch a thief," reflected Steinmetz. He said nothing, however, when he shook hands.

They mounted their horses and rode back the way they had come. For half an hour no one spoke. Then Paul broke the silence. He only said one word:

"D—n."

"Yes," returned Steinmetz quietly. "Charity is a dangerous plaything."



CHAPTER XIV

A WIRE-PULLER

The Palace of Industry—where, with a fine sense of the fitness of the name, the Parisians amuse themselves—was in a blaze of electric light and fashion. The occasion was the Concours Hippique, an ultra-equine fete, where the lovers of the friend of man, and such persons as are fitted by an ungenerous fate with limbs suitable to horsey clothes, meet and bow. In France, as in a neighboring land (less sunny), horsiness is the last refuge of the diminutive. It is your small man who is ever the horsiest in his outward appearance, just as it is your very plain young person who is keenest at the Sunday-school class.

When a Frenchman is horsey he never runs the risk of being mistaken for a groom or a jockey, as do his turfy compeers in England. His costume is so exaggeratedly suggestive of the stable and the horse as to leave no doubt whatever that he is an amateur of the most pronounced type. His collar is so white and stiff and portentous as to make it impossible for him to tighten up his own girths. His breeches are so breechy about the knees as to render an ascent to the saddle a feat which it is not prudent to attempt without assistance. His gloves are so large and seamy as to make it extremely difficult to grasp the bridle, and quite impossible to buckle a strap. Your French horseman is, in fact, rather like a knight of old, inasmuch as his attendants are required to set him on his horse with his face turned in the right direction, his bridle in his left hand, his whip in his right, and, it is to be supposed, his heart in his mouth. When he is once up there, however, the gallant son of Gaul can teach even some of us, my fox-hunting masters, the way to sit a horse!

We have, however, little to do with such matters here, except in so far as they affect the persons connected with this record. The Concours Hippique, be it therefore known, was at its height. Great deeds of horsemanship had been successfully accomplished. The fair had smiled beneath pencilled eyebrows upon the brave in uniform and breeches. At the time when we join the fashionable throng, the fair are smiling their brightest. It is, in fact, an interval for refreshment.

A crowd of well-dressed men jostled each other good-naturedly around a long table, where insolent waiters served tepid coffee, and sandwiches that had been cut by the hand of a knave. In the background a number of ladies nodded encouragement to their cavaliers in the intervals of scrutinizing each other's dresses. Many pencilled eyebrows were raised in derision of too little style displayed by some innocent rival, or brought down in disapproval of too much of the same vague quality displayed by one less innocent.

In the midst of these, as in his element, moved the Baron Claude de Chauxville, smiling his courteous, ready smile, which his enemies called a grin. He took up less room than the majority of the men around him; he succeeded in passing through narrower places, and jostled fewer people. In a word, he proved to his own satisfaction, and to the discomfiture of many a younger man, his proficiency in the gentle art of getting on in the world.

Not far from him stood a stout gentleman of middle age, with a heavy fair mustache brushed upward on either side. This man had an air of distinction which was notable even in this assembly; for there were many distinguished people present, and a Frenchman of note plays his part better than do we dull, self-conscious islanders. This man looked like a general, so upright was he, so keen his glance, so independent the carriage of his head.

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking gravely on at the social festivity. He bowed and raised his hat to many, but he entered into conversation with none.

"Ce Vassili," he heard more than once whispered, "c'est un homme dangereux."

And he smiled all the more pleasantly.

Now, if a very keen observer had taken the trouble to ignore the throng and watch two persons only, that observer might have discovered the fact that Claude de Chauxville was slowly and purposely making his way toward the man called Vassili.

De Chauxville knew and was known of many. He had but recently arrived from London. He found himself called upon to shake hands a l'anglais with this one and that, giving all and sundry his impressions of the perfidious Albion with a verve and neatness truly French. He went from one to the other with perfect grace and savoir-faire, and each change of position brought him nearer to the middle-aged man with upturned mustache, upon whom his movements were by no means lost.

Finally De Chauxville bumped against the object of his quest—possibly, indeed, the object of his presence at the Concours Hippique. He turned with a ready apology.

"Ah!" he exclaimed; "the very man I was desiring to see."

The individual known as "ce Vassili"—a term of mingled contempt and distrust—bowed very low. He was a plain commoner, while his interlocutor was a baron. The knowledge of this was subtly conveyed in his bow.

"How can I serve M. le Baron?" he enquired in a voice which was naturally loud and strong, but had been reduced by careful training to a tone inaudible at the distance of a few paces.

"By following me to the Cafe Tantale in ten minutes," answered De Chauxville, passing on to greet a lady who was bowing to him with the labored grace of a Parisienne.

Vassili merely bowed and stood upright again. There was something in his attitude of quiet attention, of unobtrusive scrutiny and retiring intelligence, vaguely suggestive of the police—something which his friends refrained from mentioning to him; for this Vassili was a dignified man, of like susceptibilities with ourselves, and justly proud of the fact that he belonged to the Corps Diplomatique. What position he occupied in that select corporation he never vouchsafed to define. But it was known that he enjoyed considerable emoluments, while he was never called upon to represent his country or his emperor in any official capacity. He was attached, he said, to the Russian Embassy. His enemies called him a spy; but the world never puts a charitable construction on that of which it only has a partial knowledge.

In ten minutes Claude de Chauxville left the Concours Hippique. In the Champs Elysees he turned to the left, up toward the Bois du Boulogne; turned to the left again, and took one of the smaller paths that lead to one or other of the sequestered and somewhat select cafes on the south side of the Champs Elysees.

At the Cafe Tantale—not in the garden, for it was winter, but in the inner room—he found the man called Vassili consuming a pensive and solitary glass of liqueur.

De Chauxville sat down, stated his requirements to the waiter in a single word, and offered his companion a cigarette, which Vassili accepted with the consciousness that it came from a coroneted case.

"I am rather thinking of visiting Russia," said the Frenchman.

"Again," added Vassili, in his quiet voice.

De Chauxville looked up sharply, smiled, and waved the word away with a gesture of the fingers that held a cigarette.

"If you will—again."

"On private affairs?" enquired Vassili, not so much, it would appear, from curiosity as from habit. He put the question with the assurance of one who has a right to know.

De Chauxville nodded acquiescence through the tobacco smoke.

"The bane of public men—private affairs," he said epigrammatically.

But the attache to the Russian Embassy was either too dense or too clever to be moved to a sympathetic smile by a cheap epigram.

"And M. le Baron wants a passport?" he said, lapsing into the useful third person, which makes the French language so much more fitted to social and diplomatic purposes than is our rough northern tongue.

"And more," answered De Chauxville. "I want what you hate parting with—information."

The man called Vassili leaned back in his chair with a little smile. It was an odd little smile, which fell over his features like a mask and completely hid his thoughts. It was apparent that Claude de Chauxville's tricks of speech and manner fell here on barren ground. The Frenchman's epigrams, his method of conveying his meaning in a non-committing and impersonal generality, failed to impress this hearer. The difference between a Frenchman and a Russian is that the former is amenable to every outward influence—the outer thing penetrates. The Russian, on the contrary, is a man who works his thoughts, as it were, from internal generation to external action. The action, moreover, is demonstrative, which makes the Russian different from other northern nations of an older civilization and a completer self-control.

"Then," said Vassili, "if I understand M. le Baron aright, it is a question of private and personal affairs that suggests this journey to—Russia?"

"Precisely."

"In no sense a mission?" suggested the other, sipping his liqueur thoughtfully.

"In no sense a mission. I give you a proof. I have been granted six months' leave of absence, as you probably know."

"Precisely so, mo' cher Baron." Vassili had a habit of applying to every one the endearing epithet, which lost a consonant somewhere in his mustache. "When a military officer is granted a six months' leave, it is exactly then that we watch him."

De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders in deprecation, possibly with contempt for any system of watching.

"May one call it an affaire de coeur?" asked Vassili, with his grim smile.

"Certainly. Are not all private affairs such, one way or the other?"

"And you want a passport?"

"Yes—a special one."

"I will see what I can do."

"Thank you."

Vassili emptied his glass, drew in his feet, and glanced at the clock.

"But that is not all I want," said De Chauxville.

"So I perceive."

"I want you to tell me what you know of Prince Pavlo Alexis."

"Of Tver?"

"Of Tver. What you know from your point of view, you understand, my dear Vassili. Nothing political, nothing incriminating, nothing official. I only want a few social details."

Again the odd smile fell over the dignified face.

"In case," said Vassili, rather slowly, "I should only impart to you stale news and valueless details with which you are already acquainted, I must ask you to tell me first what you know—from your point of view."

"Certainly," answered De Chauxville, with engaging frankness. "The man I know slightly is the sort of thing that Eton and Oxford turn out by the dozen. Well dressed, athletic, silent, a thorough gentleman—et voila tout."

The face of Vassili expressed something remarkably like disbelief.

"Ye—es," he said slowly.

"And you?" suggested De Chauxville.

"You leave too much to my imagination," said Vassili. "You relate mere facts—have you no suppositions, no questions in your mind about the man?"

"I want to know what his purpose in life may be. There is a purpose—one sees it in his face. I want also to know what he does with his spare time; he must have much to dispose of in England."

Vassili nodded, and suddenly launched into detail.

"Prince Pavlo Alexis," he said, "is a young man who takes a full and daring advantage of his peculiar position. He defies many laws in a quiet, persistent way which impresses the smaller authorities and to a certain extent paralyzes them. He was in the Charity League—deeply implicated. He had a narrow escape. He was pulled through by the cleverest man in Russia."

"Karl Steinmetz?"

"Yes," answered Vassili behind the rigid smile; "Karl Steinmetz."

"And that," said De Chauxville, watching the face of his companion, "is all you can tell me?"

"To be quite frank with you," replied the man who had never been quite frank in his life, "that is all I want to tell you."

De Chauxville lighted a cigarette, with exaggerated interest in the match.

"Paul is a friend of mine," he said calmly. "I may be staying at Osterno with him."

The rigid smile never relaxed.

"Not with Karl Steinmetz on the premises," said Vassili imperturbably.

"The astute Mr. Steinmetz may be removed to some other sphere of usefulness. There is a new spoke in his Teutonic wheel."

"Ah!"

"Prince Paul is about to marry—the widow of Sydney Bamborough."

"Sydney Bamborough," repeated Vassili musingly, with a perfect expression of innocence on his well-cut face. "I have heard that name before."

De Chauxville laughed quietly, as if in appreciation of a pretty trick which he knew as well as its performer.

"She is a friend of mine."

The attache, as he was pleased to call himself, to the Russian Embassy, leant his arms on the table, bending forward and bringing his large, fleshy face within a few inches of De Chauxville's keen countenance.

"That makes all the difference," he said.

"I thought it would," answered De Chauxville, meeting the steady gaze firmly.



CHAPTER XV

IN A WINTER CITY

St. Petersburg under snow is the most picturesque city in the world. The town is at its best when a high wind has come from the north to blow all the snow from the cupola of St. Isaac's, leaving that golden dome, in all its brilliancy, to gleam and flash over the whitened sepulchre of a city.

In winter the Neva is a broad, silent thoroughfare between the Vassili Ostrow and the Admiralty Gardens. In the winter the pestilential rattle of the cobble-stones in the side streets is at last silent, and the merry music of sleigh-bells takes its place. In the winter the depressing damp of this northern Venice is crystallized and harmless.

On the English Quay a tall, narrow house stands looking glumly across the river. It is a suspected house, and watched; for here dwelt Stepan Lanovitch, secretary and organizer of the Charity League.

Although the outward appearance of the house is uninviting, the interior is warm and dainty. The odor of delicate hot-house plants is in the slightly enervating atmosphere of the apartments. It is a Russian fancy to fill the dwelling-rooms with delicate, forced foliage and bloom. In no country of the world are flowers so worshipped, is money so freely spent in floral decoration. There is something in the sight, and more especially in the scent of hot-house plants, that appeals to the complex siftings of three races which constitute a modern Russian.

We, in the modest self-depreciation which is a national characteristic, are in the habit of thinking, and sometimes saying, that we have all the good points of the Angle and the Saxon rolled satisfactorily into one Anglo-Saxon whole. We are of the opinion that mixed races are the best, and we leave it to be understood that ours is the only satisfactory combination. Most of us ignore the fact that there are others at all, and very few indeed recognize the fact that the Russian of to-day is essentially a modern outcome of a triple racial alliance of which the best component is the Tartar.

The modern Russian is an interesting study, because he has the remnant of barbaric tastes, with ultra-civilized facilities for gratifying the same. The best part of him comes from the East, the worst from Paris.

The Countess Lanovitch belonged to the school existing in Petersburg and Moscow in the early years of the century—the school that did not speak Russian but only French, that chose to class the peasants with the beasts of the field, that apparently expected the deluge to follow soon.

Her drawing-room, looking out on to the Neva, was characteristic of herself. Camellias held the floral honors in vase and pot. The French novel ruled supreme on the side-table. The room was too hot, the chairs were too soft, the moral atmosphere too lax. One could tell that this was the dwelling-room of a lazy, self-indulgent, and probably ignorant woman.

The countess herself in nowise contradicted this conclusion. She was seated on a very low chair, exposing a slippered foot to the flame of a wood fire. She held a magazine in her hand, and yawned as she turned its pages. She was not so stout in person as her loose and somewhat highly colored cheeks would imply. Her eyes were dull and sleepy. The woman was an incarnate yawn.

She looked up, turning lazily in her chair, to note the darkening of the air without the double windows.

"Ah!" she said aloud to herself in French, "when will it be tea-time?"

As she spoke the words, the bells of a sleigh suddenly stopped with a rattle beneath the window.

Immediately the countess rose and went to the mirror over the mantel-piece. She arranged without enthusiasm her straggling hair, and put straight a lace cap which was chronically crooked. She looked at her reflection pessimistically, as well she might. It was the puffy red face of a middle-aged woman given to petty self-indulgence.

"While she was engaged in this discouraging pastime the door was opened, and a maid came in with the air of one who has gained a trifling advantage by the simple method of peeping.

"It is M. Steinmetz, Mme. la Comtesse."

"Ah! Do I look horrible, Celestine? I have been asleep."

Celestine was French, and laughed with all the charm of that tactful nation.

"How can Mme. la Comtesse ask such a thing? Madame might be thirty-five!"

It is to be supposed that the staff of angelic recorders have a separate set of ledgers for French people, with special discounts attaching to pleasant lies.

Madame shook her head—and believed.

"M. Steinmetz is even now taking off his furs in the hall," said Celestine, retiring toward the door.

"It is well. We shall want tea."

Steinmetz came into the room with an exaggerated bow and a twinkle in his melancholy eyes.

"Figure to yourself, my dear Steinmetz," said the countess vivaciously. "Catrina has gone out—on a day like this! Mon Dieu! How gray, how melancholy!"

"Without, yes! But here, how different!" replied Steinmetz in French.

The countess cackled and pointed to a chair.

"Ah! you always flatter. What news have you, bad character?"

Steinmetz smiled pensively, not so much suggesting the desire to impart as the intention to withhold that which the lady called news.

"I came for yours, countess. You are always amusing—as well as beautiful," he added, with his mouth well controlled beneath the heavy mustache.

The countess shook her head playfully, which had the effect of tilting her cap to one side.

"I! Oh, I have nothing to tell you. I am a nun. What can one do—what can one hear in Petersburg? Now in Paris it is different. But Catrina is so firm. Have you ever noticed that, Steinmetz? Catrina's firmness, I mean. She wills a thing, and her will is like a rock. The thing has to be done. It does itself. It comes to pass. Some people are so. Now I, my clear Steinmetz, only desire peace and quiet. So I give in. I gave in to poor Stepan. And now he is exiled. Perhaps if I had been firm—if I had forbidden all this nonsense about charity—it would have been different. And Stepan would have been quietly at home instead of in Tomsk, is it, or Tobolsk? I always forget which. Well, Catrina says we must live in Petersburg this winter, and—nous voila!"

Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders with a commiserating smile. He took the countess's troubles indifferently, as do the rest of us when our neighbor's burden does not drag upon our own shoulders. It suited him that Catrina should be in Petersburg, and it is to be feared that the feelings of the Countess Lanovitch had no weight as against the convenience of Karl Steinmetz.

"Ah, well!" he said, "you must console yourself with the thought that Petersburg is the brighter for some of us. Who is this—another visitor?"

The door was thrown open, and Claude de Chauxville walked into the room with the easy grace which was his.

"Mme. la Comtesse," he said, bowing over her hand.

Then he stood upright, and the two men smiled grimly at each other. Steinmetz had thought that De Chauxville was in London. The Frenchman counted on the other's duties to retain him in Osterno.

"Pleasure!" said De Chauxville, shaking hands.

"It is mine," answered Steinmetz.

The countess looked from one to the other with a smile on her foolish face.

"Ah!" she exclaimed; "how pleasant it is to meet old friends! It is like by-gone times."

At this moment the door opened again and Catrina came in. In her rich furs she looked almost pretty.

She shook hands eagerly with Steinmetz; her deep eyes searched his face with a singular, breathless scrutiny.

"Where are you from?" she asked quickly.

"London."

"Catrina," broke in the countess, "you do not remember M. de Chauxville! He nursed you when you were a child."

Catrina turned and bowed to De Chauxville.

"I should have remembered you," he said, "if we had met accidentally. After all, childhood is but a miniature—is it not so?"

"Perhaps," answered Catrina; "and when the miniature develops it loses the delicacy which was its chief charm."

She turned again to Steinmetz, as if desirous of continuing her conversation with him.

"M. de Chauxville, you surely have news?" broke in the countess's cackling voice. "I have begged M. Steinmetz in vain. He says he has none; but is one to believe so notorious a bad character?"

"Madame, it is wise to believe only that which is convenient. But Steinmetz, I promise you, is the soul of honor. What sort of news do you crave for? Political, which is dangerous; social, which is scandalous; or court news, which is invariably false?"

"Let us have scandal, then."

"Ah! I must refer you to the soul of honor."

"Who," answered Steinmetz, "in that official capacity is necessarily deaf, and in a private capacity is naturally dull."

He was looking very hard at De Chauxville, as if he was attempting to make him understand something which he could not say aloud. De Chauxville, from carelessness or natural perversity, chose to ignore the persistent eyes.

"Surely the news is from London," he said lightly; "we have nothing from Paris."

He glanced at Steinmetz, who was frowning.

"I can hardly tell you stale news that comes from London via Paris, can I?" he continued.

Steinmetz was tapping impatiently on the floor with his broad boot.

"About whom—about whom?" cried the countess, clapping her soft hands together.

"Well, about Prince Paul," said De Chauxville, looking at Steinmetz with airy defiance.

Steinmetz moved a little. He placed himself in front of Catrina, who had suddenly lost color. She could only see his broad back. The others in the room could not see her at all. She was rather small, and Steinmetz hid her as behind a screen.

"Ah!" he said to the countess, "his marriage! But Madame the Countess assuredly knows of that."

"How could she?" put in De Chauxville.

"The countess knew that Prince Paul was going to be married," explained Karl Steinmetz very slowly, as if he wished to give some one time. "With such a man as he, 'going to be' is not very far from being."

"Then it is an accomplished fact?" said the countess sharply.

"Yesterday," answered Steinmetz.

"And you were not there!" exclaimed Countess Lanovitch, with uplifted hands.

"Since I was here," answered Steinmetz.

The countess launched into a disquisition on the heinousness of marrying any but a compatriot. The tone of her voice was sharp, and the volume of her words almost amounted to invective. As Steinmetz was obviously not listening, the lady imparted her views to the Baron de Chauxville.

Steinmetz waited for some time, then he turned slowly toward Catrina without actually looking at her.

"It is dangerous," he said, "to stay in this warm room with your furs."

"Yes," she answered, rather faintly; "I will go and take them off."

Steinmetz held the door open for her, but he did not look at her.



CHAPTER XVI

THE THIN END

"But I confess I cannot understand why I should not be called the Princess Alexis—there is nothing to be ashamed of in the title. I presume you have a right to it?"

Etta looked up from her occupation of fixing a bracelet, with a little glance of enquiry toward her husband.

They had been married a month. The honeymoon—a short one—had been passed in the house of a friend, indeed a relation of Etta's own, a Scotch peer who was not above lending a shooting-lodge in Scotland on the tacit understanding that there should be some quid pro quo in the future.

In answer Paul merely smiled, affectionately tolerant of her bright sharpness of manner. Your bright woman in society is apt to be keen at home. What is called vivacity abroad may easily degenerate into snappiness by the hearth.

"I think it is rather ridiculous being called plain Mrs. Howard-Alexis," added Etta, with a pout.

They were going to a ball—the first since their marriage. They had just dined, and Paul had followed his wife into the drawing-room. He took a simple-minded delight in her beauty, which was of the description that is at its best in a gorgeous setting. He stood looking at her, noting her grace, her pretty, studied movements. There were, he reflected, few women more beautiful—none, in his own estimation, fit to compare with her.

She had hitherto been sweetness itself to him, enlivening his lonely existence, shining suddenly upon his self-contained nature with a brilliancy that made him feel dull and tongue-tied.

Already, however, he was beginning to discover certain small differences, not so much of opinion as of thought, between Etta and himself. She attached an importance to social function, to social opinion, to social duties, which he in no wise understood. Invitations were showered upon them. A man who is a prince and prefers to drop the title need not seek popularity in London. The very respectable reader probably knows as well as his humble servant, the writer, that in London there is always a social circle just a little lower than one's own which opens its doors with noble, disinterested hospitality, and is prepared to lick the blacking from any famous foot.

These invitations Etta accepted eagerly. Some women hold it little short of a crime to refuse an invitation, and go through life regretting that there is only one evening to each day. To Paul these calls were nothing new. His secretary had hitherto drawn a handsome salary for doing little more than refuse such.

It was in Etta's nature to be somewhat carried away by glitter. A great ball-room, brilliant illumination, music, flowers, and diamonds had an effect upon her which she enjoyed in anticipation. Her eyes gleamed brightly on reading the mere card of invitation. Some dull and self-contained men are only to be roused by the clatter and whirl of a battle-field, and this stirs them into brilliancy, changing them to new men. Etta, always brilliant, always bright, exceeded herself on her battle-field—a great social function.

Since their marriage she had never been so beautiful, her eyes had never been so sparkling, her color so brilliant as at this moment when she asked her husband to let her use her title. Hers was the beauty that blooms not for one man alone, but for the multitude; that feeds not on the love of one, but on the admiration of many. The murmur of the man in the street who turned and stared into her carriage was more than the devotion of her husband.

"A foreign title," answered Paul, "is nothing in England. I soon found that out at Eton and at Trinity. It was impossible there. I dropped it, and I have never taken it up again."

"Yes, you old stupid, and you have never taken the place you are entitled to, in consequence."

"What place? May I button that?"

"Thanks."

She held out her arm while he, with fingers much too large for such dainty work, buttoned her glove.

"The place in society," she answered.

"Oh; does that matter? I never thought of it."

"Of course it matters," answered the lady, with an astonished little laugh. (It is wonderful what an importance we attach to that which has been dearly won.) "Of course it matters," answered Etta; "more than—well, more than any thing."

"But the position that depends upon a foreign title cannot be of much value," said the pupil of Karl Steinmetz.

Etta shook her pretty head reflectively.

"Of course," she answered, "money makes a position of its own, and every-body knows that you are a prince; but it would be nicer, with the servants and every-body, to be a princess."

"I am afraid I cannot do it," said Paul.

"Then there is some reason for it," answered his wife, looking at him sharply.

"Yes, there is."

"Ah!"

"The reason is the responsibility that attaches to the very title you wish to wear."

The lady smiled, a little scornfully perhaps.

"Oh! Your grubby old peasants, I suppose," she said.

"Yes. You remember, Etta, what I told you before we were married—about the people, I mean?"

"Oh, yes!" answered Etta, glancing at the clock and hiding a little yawn behind her fan.

"I did not tell you all," went on Paul, "partly because it was inexpedient, partly because I feared it might bore you. I only told you that I was vaguely interested in the peasants, and thought it would be a good thing if they could be gradually educated into a greater self-respect, a greater regard for cleanliness and that sort of thing."

"Yes, dear, I remember," answered Etta, listlessly contemplating her gloved hands.

"Well, I have not contented myself with thinking this during the last two or three years. I have tried to put it into practice. Steinmetz and I have lived at Osterno six months of the year on purpose to organize matters on the estate. I was deeply implicated in the—Charity League—"

Etta dropped her fan with a clatter into the fender.

"Oh! I hope it is not broken," she gasped, with a singular breathlessness.

"I do not think so," replied Paul, picking up the fan and returning it to her. "Why, you look quite white! What does it matter if it is broken? You have others."

"Yes, but—" Etta paused, opening the fan and examining the sticks so closely that her face was hidden by the feathers. "Yes, but I like this one. What is the Charity League, dear?"

"It was a large organization gotten up by the hereditary nobles of Russia to educate the people and better their circumstances by discriminate charity. Of course it had to be kept secret, as the bureaucracy is against any attempt to civilize the people—against education or the dissemination of news. The thing was organized. We were just getting to work when some one stole the papers of the League from the house of Count Stepan Lanovitch and sold them to the Government. The whole thing was broken up; Lanovitch and others were exiled, I bolted home, and Steinmetz faced the storm alone in Osterno. He was too clever for them, and nothing was brought home to us. But you will understand that it is necessary for us to avoid any notoriety, to live as quietly and privately as possible."

"Yes, of course; but—"

"But what?"

"You can never go back to Russia," said Etta slowly, feeling her ground, as it were.

"Oh, yes, I can. I was just coming to that. I want to go back this winter. There is so much to be done. And I want you to come with me."

"No, Paul. No, no! I couldn't do that!" cried Etta, with a ring of horror in her voice, strangely out of keeping with her peaceful and luxurious surroundings.

"Why not?" asked the man who had never known fear.

"Oh, I should be afraid. I couldn't. I hate Russia!"

"But you don't know it."

"No," answered Etta, turning away and busying herself with her long silken train. "No, of course not. Only Petersburg, I mean. But I have heard what it is. So cold and dismal and miserable. I feel the cold so horribly. I wanted to go to the Riviera this winter. I really think, Paul, you are asking me too much."

"I am only asking a proof that you care for me."

Etta gave a little laugh—a nervous laugh with no mirth in it.

"A proof! But that is so bourgeois and unnecessary. Haven't you proof enough, since I am your wife?"

Paul looked at her without any sign of yielding. His attitude, his whole being, was expressive of that immovability of purpose which had hitherto been concealed from her by his quiet manner. Steinmetz knew of the mental barrier within this Anglo-Russian soul, against which prayer and argument were alike unavailing. The German had run against it once or twice in the course of their joint labors, and had invariably given way at once.

Etta looked at him. The color was coming back to her face in patches. There was something unsteady in her eyes—something suggesting that for the first time in her life she was daunted by a man. It was not Paul's speech, but his silence that alarmed her. She felt that trivial arguments, small feminine reasons, were without weight.

"Now that you are married," she said, "I do not think you have any right to risk your life and your position for a fad."

"I have done it with impunity for the last two or three years," he answered. "With ordinary precautions the risk is small. I have begun the thing now; I must go on with it."

"But the country is not safe for us—for you."

"Oh, yes, it is," answered Paul. "As safe as ever it has been."

Etta paused. She turned round and looked into the fire. He could not see her face.

"Then the Ch—Charity League is forgotten?" she said.

"No," answered her husband quietly. "It will not be forgotten until we have found out who sold us to the Government."

Etta's lips moved in a singular way. She drew them in and held them with her teeth. For a moment her beautiful face wore a hunted expression of fear.

"What will you gain by that?" she asked evenly.

"I? Oh, nothing. I do not care one way or the other. But there are some people who want the man—very much."

Etta drew in a long, deep breath.

"I will go to Osterno with you, if you like," she said. "Only—only I must have Maggie with me."

"Yes, if you like," answered Paul, in some surprise.

The clock struck ten, and Etta's eyes recovered their brightness. Womanlike, she lived for the present. The responsibility of the future is essentially a man's affair. The present contained a ball, and it was only in the future that Osterno and Russia had to be faced. Let us also give Etta Alexis her due. She was almost fearless. It is permissible to the bravest to be startled. She was now quite collected. The even, delicate color had returned to her face.

"Maggie is such a splendid companion," she said lightly. "She is so easy to please. I think she would come if you asked her, Paul."

"If you want her, I shall ask her, of course; but it may hinder us a little. I thought you might be able to help us—with the women, you know."

There was a queer little smile on Etta's face—a smile, one might have thought, of contempt.

"Yes, of course," she said. "It is so nice to be able to do good with one's money."

Paul looked at her in his slow, grave way, but he said nothing. He knew that his wife was cleverer and brighter than himself. He was simple enough to think that this superiority of intellect might be devoted to the good of the peasants of Osterno.

"It is not a bad place," he said—"a very fine castle, one of the finest in Europe. Before I came away I gave orders for your rooms to be done up. I should like every thing to be nice for you."

"I know you would, dear," she answered, glancing at the clock. (The carriage was ordered for a quarter-past ten.) "But I suppose," she went on, "that, socially speaking, we shall be rather isolated. Our neighbors are few and far between."

"The nearest," said Paul quietly, "are the Lanovitches."

"Who?"

"The Lanovitches. Do you know them?"

"Of course not," answered Etta sharply. "But I seem to know the name. Were there any in St. Petersburg?"

"The same people," answered Paul; "Count Stepan Lanovitch."

Etta was looking at her husband with her bright smile. It was a little too bright, perhaps. Her eyes had a gleam in them. She was conscious of being beautifully dressed, conscious of her own matchless beauty, almost dauntless, like a very strong man armed.

"Well, I think I am a model wife," she said: "to give in meekly to your tyranny; to go and bury myself in the heart of Russia in the middle of winter—By the way, we must buy some furs; that will be rather exciting. But you must not expect me to be very intimate with your Russian friends. I am not quite sure that I like Russians"—she went toward him, laying her two hands gently on his broad breast and looking up at him—"not quite sure—especially Russian princes who bully their wives. You may kiss me, however, but be very careful. Now I must go and finish dressing. We shall be late as it is."

She gathered together her fan and gloves, for she had petulantly dragged off a pair which did not fit.

"And you will ask Maggie to come with us?" she said.

He held open the door for her to pass out, gravely polite even to his wife—this old-fashioned man.

"Yes," he answered; "but why do you want me to ask her?"

"Because I want her to come."



CHAPTER XVII

CHARITY

In these democratic days a very democratic theory has exploded. Not so very long ago we believed, or made semblance of belief, that it is useless to put a high price upon a ticket with the object of securing that selectness for which the high-born crave. "If they want to come," Lady Champignon (wife of Alderman Champignon) would say, "they do not mind paying the extra half-guinea."

But Lady Champignon was wrong. It is not that the self-made man cannot or will not pay two guineas for a ball-ticket. It is merely that, in his commercial way, he thinks that he will not have his money's worth, and therefore prefers keeping his two guineas to spend on something more tangible—say food. The nouveau riche never quite purges his mind of the instinct commercial, and it therefore goes against the grain to pay heavily for a form of entertainment which his soul had not the opportunity of learning to love in its youth. The aristocrat, on the other hand, has usually been brought up to the cultivation of enjoyment, and he therefore spends with perfect equanimity more on his pleasure than the bourgeois mind can countenance.

The ball to which Paul and Etta were going was managed by some titled ladies who knew their business well. The price of the tickets was fabulous. The lady patronesses of the great Charity Ball were tactful and unabashed. They drew the necessary line (never more necessary than it is to-day) with a firm hand.

The success of the ball was therefore a foregone conclusion. In French fiction there is invariably a murmur of applause when the heroine enters a room full of people, which fact serves, at all events, to show the breeding and social status of persons with whom French novelists are in the habit of associating. There was therefore no applause when Paul and Etta made their appearance, but that lady had, nevertheless, the satisfaction of perceiving glances, not only of admiration, but of interest and even of disapproval, among her own sex. Her dress she knew to be perfect, and when she perceived the craning pale face of the inevitable lady-journalist, peering between the balusters of a gallery, she thoughtfully took up a prominent position immediately beneath that gallery, and slowly turned round like a beautifully garnished joint before the fire of cheap publicity.

To Paul this ball was much like others. There were a number of the friends of his youth—tall, clean-featured, clean-limbed men, with a tendency toward length and spareness—who greeted him almost affectionately. Some of them introduced him to their wives and sisters, which ladies duly set him down as nice but dull—a form of faint praise which failed to damn. There were a number of ladies to whom it was necessary for him to bow in acknowledgment of past favors which had missed their mark. From the gallery the washed-out female journalists poked out their eager faces—for they were women still, and liked to look upon a man when he was strong.

And all the while Karl Steinmetz was storming in his guttural English at the door, upbraiding hired waiters for their stupidity in accepting two literal facts literally. The one fact was that they were forbidden to admit any one without a ticket; the second fact being that tickets were not to be obtained at the price of either one or the other of the two great motives of man—Love or Money.

Steinmetz was Teutonic and imposing, with the ribbon of a great Order on his breast. He mentioned the names of several ladies who might have been, but were not, of the committee. Finally, however, he mentioned the historic name of one whose husband had braved more than one Russian emperor successfully for England.

"Yes, me lord, her ladyship's here," answered the man.

Steinmetz wrote on a card, "In memory of '56, let me in," and sent in the missive.

A few minutes later a stout, smiling lady came toward him with outstretched hand.

"What mischief are you about?" she enquired, "you stormy petrel! This is no place for your deep-laid machinations. We are here to enjoy ourselves and found a hospital. Come in, however. I am delighted to see you. You used to be a famous dancer—well, some little time ago."

"Yes, my dear countess, let us say some little time ago. Ach, those were days! those were days! You do not mind the liberty I have taken?"

"I am glad you took it. But your card gave me a little tug at the heart. It brought back so much. And still plain Karl Steinmetz—after all. We used to think much of you in the old days. Who would have thought that all the honors would have slipped past you?"

Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders with a heart-whole laugh.

"Ah, what matter? Who cares, so long as my old friends remember me? Who would have thought, my dear madam, that the map of Europe would have been painted the colors it is to-day? It was a kaleidoscope—the clatter of many stools, and I fell down between them all. Still plain Karl Steinmetz—still very much at your service. Shall I send my check for five guineas to you?"

"Yes, do; I am secretary. Always businesslike; a wonderful man you are still."

"And you, my dear countess, a wonderful lady. Always gay, always courageous. I have heard and sympathized. I have heard of many blows and wounds that you have received in the battle we began—well, some little time ago."

"Ah, don't mention them! They hurt none the less because we cover them with a smile, eh? I dare say you know. You have been in the thick of the fight yourself. But you did not come here to chat with me, though your manner might lead one to think so. I will not keep you."

"I came to see Prince Pavlo," answered Steinmetz. "I must thank you for enabling me to do so. I may not see you again this evening. My best thanks, my very dear lady."

He bowed, and with his half-humorous, half-melancholy smile, left her.

The first face he recognized was a pretty one. Miss Maggie Delafield was just turning away from a partner who was taking his conge, when she looked across the room and saw Steinmetz. He had only met her once, barely exchanging six words with her, and her frank, friendly bow was rather a surprise to him. She came toward him, holding out her hand with an open friendliness which this young lady was in the habit of bestowing upon men and women impartially—upon persons of either sex who happened to meet with her approval. She did not know what made her incline to like this man, neither did she seek to know. In a quiet, British way Miss Delafield was a creature of impulse. Her likes and dislikes were a matter of instinct, and, much as one respects the doctrine of charity, it is a question whether an instinctive dislike should be quashed by an exaggerated sense of neighborly duty. Steinmetz she liked, and there was an end to it.

"I was afraid you did not recognize me," she said.

"My life has not so many pleasures that I can afford to forget one of them," replied Steinmetz, in his somewhat old-fashioned courtesy. "But an old—buffer, shall I say?—hardly expects to be taken much notice of by young ladies at a ball."

"It is not ten minutes since Paul assured me that you were the best dancer that Vienna ever produced," said the girl, looking at him with bright, honest eyes.

Karl Steinmetz looked down at her, for he was a tall man when Paul Alexis was not near. His quiet gray eyes were almost affectionate. There was a sudden sympathy between these two, and sudden sympathies are the best.

"Will you give an old man a trial?" he asked. "They will laugh at you."

She handed him her programme.

"Let them laugh!" she said.

He took the next dance, which happened to be vacant on her card. Almost immediately the music began, and they glided off together. Maggie began with the feeling that she was dancing with her own father, but this wore off before they had made much progress through the crowd, and gave way to the sensation that she had for partner the best dancer she had ever met, gray-haired, stout, and middle-aged.

"I wanted to speak to you," she said.

"Ah!" Steinmetz answered. He was steering with infinite skill. In that room full of dancers no one touched Maggie's elbow or the swing of her dress, and she, who knew what such things meant, smiled as she noted it.

"I have been asked to go and stay at Osterno," she said. "Shall I go?"

"By whom?"

"By Paul."

"Then go," said Steinmetz, making one of the few mistakes of his life.

"You think so—you want me to go?"

"Ach! you must not put it like that. How well you dance—colossal! But it does not affect me—your going, frauelein."

"Since you will be there?"

"Does that make a difference, my dear young lady?"

"Of course it does."

"I wonder why."

"So do I," answered Maggie frankly. "I wonder why. I have been wondering why, ever since Paul asked me. If you had not been going I should have said 'No' at once."

Karl Steinmetz laughed quietly.

"What do I represent?" he asked.

"Safety," she replied at once.

She gave a queer little laugh and went on dancing.

"And Paul?" he said, after a little while.

"Strength," replied Maggie promptly.

He looked down at her—a momentary glance of wonder. He was like a woman, inasmuch as he judged a person by a flicker of the eyelids—a glance, a silence—in preference to judging by the spoken word.

"Then with us both to take care of you, may we hope that you will brave the perils of Osterno? Ah—the music is stopping."

"If I may assure my mother that there are no perils."

Something took place beneath the gray mustache—a smile or a pursing up of the lips in doubt.

"Ah, I cannot go so far as that. You may assure Lady Delafield that I will protect you as I would my own daughter. If—well, if the good God in heaven had not had other uses for me I should have had a daughter of your age. Ach! the music has stopped. The music always does stop, Miss Delafield; that is the worst of it. Thank you for dancing with an old buffer."

He took her back to her chaperon, bowed in his old-world way to both ladies, and left them.

"If I can help it, my very dear young friend," he said to himself as he crossed the room, looking for Paul, "you will not go to Osterno."

He found Paul talking to two men.

"You here!" said Paul, in surprise.

"Yes," answered Steinmetz, shaking hands. "I gave Lady Fontain five guineas to let me in, and now I want a couple of chairs and a quiet corner, if the money includes such."

"Come up into the gallery," replied Paul.

A certain listlessness which had been his a moment before vanished when Paul recognized his friend. He led the way up the narrow stairs. In the gallery they found a few people—couples seeking, like themselves, a rare solitude.

"What news?" asked Paul, sitting down.

"Bad!" replied Steinmetz. "We have had the misfortune to make a dangerous enemy—Claude de Chauxville."

"Claude de Chauxville," repeated Paul.

"Yes. He wanted to marry your wife—for her money."

Paul leaned forward and dragged at his great fair mustache. He was not a subtle man, analyzing his own thoughts. Had he been, he might have wondered why he was not more jealous in respect to Etta.

"Or," went on Steinmetz, "it may have been—the other thing. It is a singular thing that many men incapable of a lifelong love, can conceive a lifelong hatred based on that love. Claude de Chauxville has hated me all his life; for very good reasons, no doubt. You are now included in his antipathy because you married madame."

"I dare say," replied Paul carelessly. "But I am not afraid of Claude de Chauxville, or any other man."

"I am," said Steinmetz. "He is up to some mischief. I was calling on the Countess Lanovitch in Petersburg when in walked Claude de Chauxville. He was constrained at the sight of my stout person, and showed it, which was a mistake. Now, what is he doing in Petersburg? He has not been there for ten years, at least. He has no friends there. He revived a minute acquaintance with the Countess Lanovitch, who is a fool of the very first water. Before I came away I heard from Catrina that he had wheedled an invitation to Thors out of the old lady. Why, my friend, why?"

Paul reflected, with a frown.

"We do not want him out there," he said.

"No; and if he goes there you must remain in England this winter."

Paul looked up sharply.

"I do not want to do that. It is all arranged," he said. "Etta was very much against going at first, but I persuaded her to do so. It would be a mistake not to go now."

Looking at him gravely, Steinmetz muttered, "I advise you not to go."

Paul shrugged his shoulders.

"I am sorry," he said. "It is too late now. Besides, I have invited Miss Delafield, and she has practically accepted."

"Does that matter?" asked Steinmetz quietly.

"Yes. I do not want her to think that I am a changeable sort of person."

Steinmetz rose, and standing with his two hands on the marble rail he looked down into the room below. The music of a waltz was just beginning, and some of the more enthusiastic spirits had already begun dancing, moving in and out among the uniforms and gay dresses.

"Well," he said resignedly; "it is as you will. There is a certain pleasure in outwitting De Chauxville. He is so d—d clever!"



CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE CHAMPS ELYSEES

"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 Hotel Bristol in Paris. Steinmetz, who held an open letter in his hand, looked out of the window across the quiet Place Vendome. 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 a terre in the Champs Elysees. 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 Elysees 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!"



CHAPTER XIX

ON THE NEVA

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?—did it not 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. "Stepan!"

"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 Stepan 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 Stepan 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 Stepan. Have you details? Wonderful—wonderful! Of course there is a God in heaven. How can people doubt it—eh?"

"Yes," said Stepan 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, Stepan, 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 cafe, 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.



CHAPTER XX

AN OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP

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 scene 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.