A WARNING
Alexis Saberevski leaned forward in his chair to secure another of the
cigarettes, and having lighted it with studied deliberation, resumed
his former position gazing between half closed eyelids toward Princess
Zara. It was quite evident that he had gone to her with a distinct
purpose in view which he meant to fulfill before his departure; and it
was plain to be seen that Zara appreciated the fact. While he was
silent, she waited, but with a half smile upon her beautiful face, that
was quizzical and somewhat whimsical, as if in her secret heart she was
aware of the purpose of his errand but for reasons of her own did not
wish to anticipate it. And he read her correctly, too. He believed that
she understood him even better than he knew her; but viewed from his
own standpoint he had a duty to perform in regard to her, and he had
gone there to fulfill it.
"Zara," he said, "when I saw the announcement of your intended visit to
this country----"
"Pardon me, Saberevski," she interrupted him; "but did the knowledge of
my expected visit come to you through a printed announcement, or were
you informed of it even before the printers had set the type?"
"I see that I must be quite frank with you," he laughed.
"Between friends frankness is always best," she retorted.
"In that case I will begin again, princess."
"It would be better--and wiser."
"When I was informed of your anticipated visit to this country I
decided that I would be the first to welcome you here, and in making
that decision I had a double purpose."
"Yes."
"One of them only, need interest us at this moment, and that is purely
a personal one. You know, Zara, how I have always regarded you, and how
I do so now. Your father was my best friend; your mother--it is perhaps
unnecessary that I should be more explicit regarding her."
"Yes, Saberevski," said Zara in a low tone. "I know that you loved my
mother, and that all your life you have remained true to your adoration
of her, even though she never returned it; but go on."
"I love you, Zara, more perhaps than I admit to myself; more profoundly
than it would be wise for me to tell you, or agreeable for you to hear;
but in the admiration and esteem I feel for you, there is included no
sentiment which could offend you."
"I know that, my friend."
"I would like to talk with you quite openly for once, Zara, in order
that you may comprehend perfectly where I stand, and because I do not
wish you to misconstrue any assertion I shall make, or to attribute to
any one of them, another motive than I intend."
"I think you may be assured of that."
"You guessed correctly a moment ago, about my receiving intelligence
concerning your visit here, before the compositors set the type of the
announcement; but the intelligence was incorporated among other things
that were conveyed to me in the same manner, and by the same message.
It had no direct significance, and beyond the mere statement of the
fact, there was no comment. I was not directed to call upon you, and in
fact there was no suggestion made that bore directly upon your presence
here. But, Zara, the mere statement of your intention conveyed to me
very many suggestions which I have come here to-day to make known to
you. I believe it to be my clear duty to do so."
"Well, my friend?"
"You know who and what I have been, and am. Always close to the person
of the czar; for very many years deeply in his confidence, and
possessing I believe his friendship to an extraordinary degree, it has
been my pleasure as well as my duty to serve my emperor in many secret
ways which our little world at St. Petersburg does not know or
appreciate. The fact that I am at present an expatriate, as you have so
aptly stated, is due to reasons which I need not explain, and which do
not concern us just now. The fact that I am one, has stationed me in
New York by choice, and not by direction; but I thank God that I am
here to greet you upon your arrival because I hope by very plain
speaking to change a course you have determined upon, and to induce
you----"
"Wait one moment, Saberevski. Don't you think that you are getting
rather beyond your depth? I appreciate all that you are trying so
vainly to tell me. I know of your personal interest in me, and I honor
you and thank you for it. But it is not like Alexis Saberevski to
hesitate over a statement he has decided to make, and if I am not
mistaken you began this discourse with a determination to be frank.
Might I suggest that you make yourself more plain?"
"I have been called a diplomat of the first order, Zara," he replied,
with a smile, "but your straight-forward methods, and my resolute
purpose, make my course of procedure somewhat difficult. I will,
however, be entirely frank."
"That is better."
"Zara de Echeveria, Alexis Saberevski informs you now that he knows you
to be high in the councils of the nihilists."
Was there a suggestion of pallor for an instant upon the countenance of
the princess? Was there a quick but imperceptible intaking of her
breath? Was there a deepening in the expression of her matchless eyes,
and an imperceptible widening of them, as they dwelt upon her
companion? Was there a stiffening of her figure in its attitude of
quiet repose, and did her muscles attain a sudden rigidity, induced by
that startling announcement? Saberevski could not have answered any one
of these questions. So perfectly were the features and the facial
expression of Princess Zara under her control that she outwardly
betrayed no sign of the effect of the announcement. And yet it might
well have affected her most deeply; might have startled her even into a
cry of terror; should have filled her with instant fear, because this
man who made it was one, who in his former official capacity could have
condemned almost any person in Russia to exile by a gesture, or a word.
And Zara did not doubt that his official capacity still obtained. She
knew him to be an expatriate as she had announced. She understood that
for some reason, not apparent, he had become a voluntary exile from his
native country and city, and might never again return to the scenes he
loved best. But she also knew that he was no less closely in the
confidence of the Russian emperor, and could never be any the less
inimical to the enemies of the czar. A statement such as he had made,
coming from him, charging her with complicity in revolutionary acts
which had for their object the assassination of the Russian ruler and
his possible successors, contained an implied threat more terrible in
its consequences than any other one which could have been made; more
terrible to her, personally, than to any other person against whom it
might have been made, because she knew by the experiences of one of her
girl friends, to what extremities of mental and moral torture a
Siberian exile may be condemned.
She made no reply. She remained perfectly motionless and silent,
waiting for him to continue.
"You need not deny me, Zara, for I know," he went on presently. "How
the knowledge came to me does not matter, and has no connection with
this interview. But I know. That knowledge has created the duty which I
have come to you to-day to perform. I want you to abandon your present
pursuits. Whatever the purpose of your visit to America may be, I beg
that you will forego it. I do not seek any confession, or even a
statement from you, upon this subject. Indeed I should prefer that you
make none. You cannot please me better than by listening to me in
silence, so that when I leave you presently, you will know and I will
know, that I will have no more knowledge concerning you and your
entanglements with those people, than I possessed before I came. I
would have it that way. I would have it no other way."
She nodded her head, gazing at him intently, but with that same
changeless expression of impersonal interest, as if she were listening
to the discussion of a third party who was not known to her save by
name.
_
"Zara," he continued, "you will receive other cards than mine to-day,
and you should know that every man or woman who will call upon you in
behalf of the nihilists, is marked and known. You cannot engage in the
business that brought you here, and afterward return to Russia in
safety. The secret police of our empire extends all over the world, and
is as efficient in the city of New York, as it is in Moscow or St.
Petersburg, so far as its requirements demand. I warn you, not in
behalf of your party, the principals of which I despise and abhor; not
in behalf of any individual member of that revolutionist sect, but
wholly in behalf of Zara de Echeveria, the daughter of my best friend,
the offspring of the only woman I ever loved. To-day while I talk to
you, I am not Alexis Saberevski the friend of the czar, but I am Alexis
Saberevski _your_ friend. I have stepped outside my duty; I have taken
it upon myself to come here to perform what may be a disloyal act to my
emperor, in order to warn you against a course which can have but one
end, and which can bring you to but one fate--Siberia."
He left his chair and stood beside her. He reached down and took one of
her hands, pressing it between the palms of both his own.
"Zara," he said, with deep-toned feeling, "in some ways you are like a
daughter to me; in others you are the reincarnation of the woman I
loved so dearly. I love you for yourself, and for the sake of those two
who gave you life. I shall never plead with you again. My duty will
probably nevermore call me into your presence. When we part this day,
it is likely to be for the last time. If danger befalls you because of
the conditions you create through this entanglement, I cannot go to
your rescue, or even to your assistance. I speak to you as with a voice
from the grave, beseeching you in the names of your father and mother,
to heed what I have said."
"You have forgotten----" She began impetuously to answer, but he
unclasped one hand from hers, long enough to make a warning gesture,
and enunciated the one word: "Hush! Remember, Zara, you are not to
speak until I have finished, and then upon a different subject. But I
will answer your unspoken thought, for I read it in your manner. I have
not forgotten your little friend Yvonne; nor Stanislaus, her brother.
Indeed, my child, this very scene reminds me of it, and renders all the
more imperative the duty I am seeking to perform. Let the terrible fate
of that poor girl appeal to you. Let the awful end of Stanislaus be a
warning. Vengeance should have no part or place in your heart, even
though you believe that they cry out to you from their graves to
undertake it. But they do not do that, Zara, and if either or both of
them could speak now, they would voice the sentiments I have expressed,
and emphasize the warnings I have given. Go back to your home in St.
Petersburg, my child, and leave politics alone. Alexander, the czar,
admires you and esteems you, but I who am his friend, warn you that the
admiration and esteem of monarchs can be no more relied upon than the
shifting fogs of the Gulf of Finland."
Again Princess Zara would have spoken, for her dark eyes lighted with a
sudden fire and she half started from her chair with an eagerness that
was impetuously expressive. But Saberevski retained his clasp upon her
hands, and without seeming to do so, restrained her where she was;
after a moment he added:
"Now, if you please we will change the subject. My duty as I saw it,
has been performed, and nothing remains to be said. In a few moments I
will leave you, and when I do so, we will probably part for the last
time. Now, Zara, tell me something about yourself."
There was a suspicion of tears in her upturned eyes as she looked at
him from out of their glowing depths, but she took him at his word, and
with a visible effort brought back the smile to her countenance as he
returned to his chair at the opposite side of the table.
"There is little to tell you of myself, Saberevski," she replied, while
he helped himself to another cigarette. "You know what my life is, even
though you have been absent from home almost a year."
"Yes," he said, smiling, "one round of pleasures, and of conquest.
Adorers waiting for you on every hand; lovers perhaps----"
"No; not lovers," she interrupted him. "There is no place for them,
Saberevski," and a shade of sadness which he attributed to the memory
of Stanislaus, clouded her eyes for a moment. Had he but known however,
it was no recollection of that young officer of the czar's household,
to whom reference has already been made and to whom Zara was once
betrothed, that affected her. It was a deeper and more far-reaching
consideration that brought the expression of pain for an instant into
her eyes, and she longed to cry out the truth to her companion, then
and there.
Had she done so, her statement would have been something like this:
"There is no room in my heart for a lover, for the reason that the
cause I have espoused fills it completely. The people whose wrongs I
seek to redress, the victims whose wandering souls cry out for
vengeance, and the women exiles in frozen Siberia whose fates are too
terrible to relate, fill my whole heart and being so completely as to
leave no room for personal love."
She would have said that, and much more, but she restrained herself;
and he rose to take his departure.
She gave him both her hands, and in a low tone that was full of
suppressed feeling, she said to him, at parting:
"Do not think, my friend, that I have failed to appreciate all the
goodness of your motives in coming to me to-day. From my heart I thank
you, and if it should be as you say, that we may never meet again,
although I see no reason for such a thing, I wish you to know that in
parting, Zara de Echeveria admired and esteemed you above all other men
of her acquaintance. Good-bye."