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[Illustration: "I DO LOVE YOU" (Page 215)]
PRINCESS ZARA
By
ROSS BEECKMAN
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
BERT KNIGHT
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1908-09 by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
_Published January_, 1909
THE THEME
_Two shall be born the whole wide world apart;
And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
Each of the other's being, and no heed;
And these o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death,
And all unconsciously shape every act
And lend each wandering step to this one end,--
That, one day, out of darkness, they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes._
SUSAN MARR SPALDING.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. A LADY OF QUALITY 11
II. A WARNING 22
III. TWO SHALL BE BORN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD APART 36
IV. DAN DERRINGTON'S STORY 45
V. IN THE PRESENCE OF THE CZAR 61
VI. A NIHILIST SPY 69
VII. FOR LOVE OF A WOMAN 85
VIII. THE PRINCESS' ORIENTAL GARDEN 101
IX. A SECRET INTERVIEW 122
X. SENTENCED TO DEATH 143
XI. FOR THE SAKE OF THE CZAR 159
XII. WHEN LOVE WAS BORN 177
XIII. LOVE WILL FIND A WAY 191
XIV. THE SCORN OF A WOMAN 205
XV. THE MURDER OF A SOUL 216
XVI. THE MOMENT OF VENGEANCE 234
XVII. LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY 249
XVIII. THE POWER OF THE FRATERNITY 265
XIX. PRINCE MICHAEL'S ANGER 276
XX. IN DEFIANCE OF THE CZAR 288
XXI. ONE EVENTFUL NIGHT 299
XXII. THE COMBAT IN THE SNOW 312
XXIII. WHAT THE CZAR FORGOT 322
XXIV. SABEREVSKI'S PROPHECY 335
PRINCESS ZARA
CHAPTER I
A LADY OF QUALITY
The steamship Trave of the North German Lloyd docked at its Hoboken
pier at eight o'clock one morning in December. Among the passengers who
presently departed from the vessel was a woman who attracted unusual
attention for the reason that she was accompanied by a considerable
suite of retainers and servants who were for a time as busy as flies
around a honey pot, caring for their mistress' baggage, and otherwise
attending to the details of her arrival. Nor was it alone for this
reason that all eyes were from time to time turned in her direction.
There was about her a certain air of distinction, wealth, power and
repose, which impressed itself upon the observers. Many there were who
sought eagerly an opportunity to scan the features of this young
woman's face, for that she was young, was immediately apparent, and the
fact added not a little to the interest that was manifested in her.
The young woman, whoever she was, maintained an air of reserve which
raised a barrier beyond which none of the curious might penetrate; and
as if insolently disdainful of the attention she attracted, her face
remained veiled; not too thickly, but effectively enough to set at
naught these efforts of the curious throng.
A view of her face was, however, not required to determine in the minds
of the beholders that she possessed more than ordinarily, the
attractive feminine qualities. Her very presence told that; the air
with which she moved about among her servitors; the simple gestures she
made in giving her directions, and the quiet but resourceful and
effective methods she used in administering her affairs, indicated that
not only was she a person of great wealth, but that she was also high
in place and in authority, and one who was accustomed to being obeyed.
Her costume was hidden entirely beneath the magnificent furs which
enveloped her, and even the maid who attended upon her immediate wants
was more elaborately gowned and wrapped than the average feminine
personage of the western world is wont to be.
The immediate party of this distinguished passenger soon took its
departure from the pier, leaving behind only those whose various duties
consisted in caring for the seventy-odd pieces of baggage soon to be
taken from the hold of the vessel; and this immediate party departed
from the pier in carriages, for the hotel where accommodations had
already been secured. The young woman and her maid occupied a
conveyance by themselves; other maids followed in a second one, and a
third contained two footmen, a courier and her official messenger.
At the hotel, where notice of her arrival in the city had been
received, she was assigned to a suite of rooms which occupied the
greater part of one entire floor and which included every convenience
which the most illustrious personage travelling in the United States
could have required, or would have found it possible to obtain.
The courier at once sought the hotel office and registered as follows:
Her Highness Princess Zara de Echeveria
and suite, St. Petersburg.
And when his attention was called to the fact that the names of the
entire party were required, he shrugged his shoulders and announced:
"I regret, sir, that I do not remember the names of all the persons who
comprise her highness' suite, but I will supply you presently with a
list of them."
In the parlor of the apartments occupied by the princess, her maid was
removing the furs and wraps and making her mistress comfortable, for
there is inevitably after a sea voyage, a few hours of fatigue which
nothing but restful quiet and utter idleness will overcome; and
therefore an hour or more later, when a visiting card was taken to the
princess she did not even give herself the trouble to examine it, but
said while she peered through half closed eyelids:
"Whoever it is, Orloff, say that I will not receive until four this
afternoon."
Down below, in the office of the hotel, the gentleman who had sent up
the card and who received this message in reply to it, shrugged his
shoulders, glanced at the face of his watch to discover that it was yet
barely noon-time, crossed to the book stall where he secured something
to read and thereby while away the time, and then having sought a
comfortable chair in a secluded corner deposited himself in it with an
air of finality which indicated that he had no idea of departing from
the hotel until after he had secured the solicited audience.
At four he sent a second card to the princess; at half past four he was
admitted to her presence.
If the eyes of that curious throng of people who had watched her
arrival at the steamship pier could have seen her then, when this man
who had waited so long was shown into her presence, they would have
been amply repaid for their admiring curiosity concerning her. It is
trite to speak of a woman as being radiantly beautiful, commonplace to
refer to it at all, save by implication, since feminine beauty is a
composite attribute, vague and indefinable, and should possess no
single quality to individualize it. Beauty such as that possessed by
Princess Zara can neither be defined nor described. It is the _tout
ensemble_ of her presence and her personal charm.
Zara de Echeveria needed no adornment to emphasize the attractions of
her gorgeous self. She was one of those rare women who are rendered
more attractive by the absence of all ornament and her dark eyes were
more luminous and brilliant than any jewel she might have worn. Her
gown, though rich, was simplicity itself, and inasmuch as her servants
had found time during the hours since their arrival, to decorate the
rooms according to the princess' tastes, she was surrounded by much the
same settings that would have been contained in her own palatial home
at St. Petersburg. When it is said that she was barely twenty-five in
years; that her father had been a Spanish nobleman in the diplomatic
service at the Russian capital, and that her mother was of royal birth,
we have an explanation for the exquisitely fascinating and almost
voluptuous qualities of her beauty, as well as for her royal manner of
command.
She did not leave her chair when this man was taken into her presence,
but extended one small and perfectly formed hand upon which gleamed a
solitary ring; the only jewel she wore that afternoon save a small pin
in the lace at her throat, which was fashioned precisely after the same
pattern as the ring.
The man lost no time in raising that beautiful hand to his lips, and he
bowed low over it, with a courtly grace as distinguished in its
gesture, as was her reception of him. One wondered why such a man as
this had been contented to endure five idle hours of waiting upon her
serene pleasure; and yet if one had looked past him to her, one might
have ceased to wonder, and have thought a lifetime of waiting would be
as nothing, if possession of her at the end of it could be its reward.
"It was kind of you to come to me so quickly after my arrival," she
said to him in a low voice that was perfectly modulated.
"It was kinder of you to receive me, princess," he responded, stepping
back again to the center of the room and standing tall and
straight--before her in his commanding manhood. He was a handsome man,
past fifty, distinguished, and like the princess he greeted, had about
him the unquestionable air of authority.
"I am afraid I kept you waiting."
"One does not consider moments of waiting, if Princess Zara be the
object of it," he retorted, smiling.
"Won't you be seated?"
"Thank you; yes."
He drew a chair forward so that they sat nearly facing each other
across a low table upon which many of the princess' personal effects
had already been arranged. Among them was a box of Russian cigarettes
which she now indicated by a gesture, while with a smile which lighted
her face wonderfully and gave to it that added charm that is
indescribable, she said:
"There are some of your favorite cigarettes, Saberevski. I had you in
mind when I included them among my personal baggage, having no doubt
that I should encounter you when I should arrive in this country; but
little thinking that you would be the first to greet me. You will
pardon me for not indulging in one of them myself, for you know that I
have never acquired the habit. Nevertheless they will perhaps suggest
to you the flavor of home, and may transport you for a moment to the
scenes which I know you are longing for."
"Thank you, princess," he replied, and lighted one. Then he leaned back
in his chair, closed his eyes, and for a time there was utter silence
between these two. The man seemed indeed to have been transported in
thought, to his native environment, not so much by the odor and flavor
of the cigarette he puffed with such calm enjoyment, as by the presence
of this magnificent creature who confronted him so daintily, and who
received him so simply and yet so grandly. "You knew, then, that I was
here in New York, princess?" he asked of her presently, peering at her
through the smoke he was making; and he smiled comfortably across the
distance that separated them.
"I knew you were in America, Saberevski; and to me America means New
York. I believed that you would not be long in making yourself known to
me after my arrival, for I knew that the papers would announce it, and
that your--shall I call it your duties?--would require that you should
not permit my presence here to pass unnoticed."
The man shrugged his shoulders, indulging himself in another smile as
he replied:
"It is hardly kind of you to attribute this call to duty on my part.
When I am in your presence I find myself wishing that there were no
such things as duties to be performed. When I look at you, Zara, I wish
that I were young again, and that I might throw duty to the winds and
enter the list against all others who seek you."
An expression of annoyance, as fleeting as it was certain, came into
her eyes, and she replied with a little show of impatience:
"Spare me that sort of thing, Saberevski. One does not always wish to
hear such expressions as that; and coming from you, addressed to me,
they are not pleasant."
"Not even when you know them to be sincere, Zara? I spoke in the past
tense, and only of what might have been were the disparity of our years
less, and if the environment by which we are respectively surrounded
could have been different."
"In other words," she smiled back at him, now recovered from her
impatience, "if the world had been created a different one, and if we
were not ourselves; as we are."
"Precisely," he replied, and laughed.
"I did not even look at your card when it was brought to me," she said,
with an abrupt change of the subject; "had I done so I would not have
kept you waiting so long. Tell me something about yourself, Saberevski;
and why it is that you have deemed it wise, or perhaps necessary to
become an expatriate, and to deprive St. Petersburg and all who are
there, of your presence and your wise counsels."
"I am afraid it is too long a story and hardly worth the telling at
that. St. Petersburg has tired of me. I am better away from it, and it
is much better with me away; believe me."
"And his majesty, the czar? Is he also of that opinion, my friend?"
"His majesty, the czar, does me the honor, princess, to approve of my
present plans and conduct," replied Saberevski with slow and low toned
emphasis.