"Now, Uncle Colin! It's really too horrid of you to spy upon me like
that! I had no idea you were behind us! I knew old Dmitri was there--
he watches me just as a cat watches a mouse. But I never thought you
would be so nasty and mean!" And the girl in her fresh white gown stood
at the window of the drawing-room drumming impatiently upon the pane
with the tips of her long, white fingers, for it was raining outside.
"My dear Natalia," I said paternally, standing upon the white goat-skin
hearthrug, and looking across at her; "I did not watch you
intentionally. I travelled by the same train as your friend, and I saw
you meet him. Really," I laughed, "you looked a most interesting pair
as you walked together down Queen's Road. I left you at the corner of
Western Road and went on to the `Metropole.'"
"Oh! you actually did have the decency to do that!" she exclaimed,
turning to me her pretty face clouded by displeasure. "Well, I say
quite frankly that I think it was absolutely horrid of you. Surely I
may meet a friend without being spied upon at every turn!" she added
resentfully.
"Dmitri only does his duty, remember," I ventured to remark.
"Oh, Dmitri's a perfect plague. He shadows me everywhere. His crafty
face irritates me whenever I see it."
"This constant surveillance is only for your own protection," I said.
"Recollect that you are a member of the Imperial family, and that
already six of your uncles and cousins, as well as your poor father,
have met with violent deaths at the hands of the revolutionists."
"I know. But it is perfectly absurd ever to dream that they want to
kill me--a girl whose only object is to live quietly and enjoy her
life."
"And her flirtations," I added, striving to make her laugh.
I was successful, for a smile came to her pretty, pouting lips, and she
said:
"Well, Uncle Colin, other girls may flirt and have men friends.
Therefore I can't see why it is so actually sinful for me to do the
same."
"But think for a moment of your position!"
"Position!" she echoed. "I'm only plain Miss Natalia Gottorp here. Why
should I study my family?"
"Ah!" I sighed. "I know how wayward you are. No amount of argument
will, I fear, ever convince you of your error."
"Oh, yes," she sighed, in imitation of the sadness of my tone, saying:
"I know what a source of trouble and deep anxiety the wicked, wayward
child is to you." Then, next moment, she burst out into a merry,
mischievous laugh, adding:
"It's really too bad of me to tease you, poor old Uncle Colin, isn't it?
But there, you're not really old. I looked you up in `Who's Who' only
yesterday. You're only thirty-two next Thursday week. And if you are a
very good boy I'll give you a nice little present. Shall I work you a
pair of slippers--eh?" she asked, with sarcasm, "or a winter waistcoat?"
"Thanks. I hate girls' needlework," I replied frankly, amused at her
sudden change of demeanour.
"Very well. You shall have a new cigarette-case, a solid gold one, with
our grand Imperial arms engraved on it and underneath the words `From
Tattie.' How will that do--eh?" she laughed.
"Ah! now you're only trying to tease me," I said. "I wonder if you
tease Mr Drury like that?"
"Oh! Dick knows me. He doesn't mind it in the least," she declared,
looking at me with those wonderful eyes that were so much admired
everywhere. "Have a cigarette," and she handed me a box of Petroffs,
and taking one herself, lit it, and then threw herself negligently into
an armchair, lazily displaying a pair of neat silk stockinged ankles and
patent-leather shoes.
"I certainly think that Mr Dick is a very lucky young fellow," I said,
"though I tell you openly that I entirely disapprove of these constant
meetings. Remember your promise to me before we left Petersburg."
"Well, I've been a very wayward child--even an incorrigible child, I
suppose--and I've broken my promise. That's all," she said, blowing a
cloud of smoke from her red lips. Like all Russian ladies, she enjoyed
a cigarette.
"I certainly think you ought to have kept your word," I said.
"But Dick, I tell you, is an old friend. I couldn't cut him, could I?"
"You need not have cut him," I said. "But I consider it unnecessary to
steal out of the house after Miss West has gone to bed, and meet him at
the station at one o'clock in the morning."
"Then upon that point we'll agree to differ. I'm old enough to be my
own mistress, and if you continue to lecture me, I shall be very annoyed
with you."
"My dear Natalia, I do not blame you in the least for falling in love.
How can I?" I said in a changed tone, for I knew that the young lady so
petted and spoiled by her earlier training must be treated with greatest
caution and tact. "Why, shall I confess a truth?" I asked, looking her
straight in the face.
"Yes, do," she said.
"Well, if I were ten years younger I should most certainly fall in love
with you myself," I laughed.
"Don't be so silly, Uncle Colin!" she exclaimed. "But would that be so
very terrible? Why, you're not an old man yet," she added, her cheeks
having flushed slightly at my words.
"Now you're blushing," I said.
"I'm not!" she cried stoutly. "You're simply horrid this morning," she
declared vehemently, turning away from me.
"Is it horrid of me to pay you a compliment?" I asked. "I merely
expressed a devout wish that I were standing in Drury's shoes. Every
man likes to be kissed by a pretty girl, whether she be a shopgirl or a
Grand Duchess."
"Oh, yes. You are quite right there. Most men make fools of themselves
over women."
"Especially when their beauty is so world-famed as that of the Grand
Duchess Natalia!"
"Now, there you are again!" she cried. "I do wish you'd change the
topic of conversation. You're horrid, I say."
And she gave a quick gesture of impatience, blew a great cloud of smoke
from her lips and put down her half-consumed cigarette upon the little
silver ashtray.
"Oh, my!" she exclaimed at last. "What a funny lover you would make,
Uncle Colin! You fancy yourself as old as Methuselah, and your
hide-bound ideas of etiquette, your straitlaced morality, and your
respect of _les convenances_ are those in vogue when your revered Queen
Victoria ascended the throne of Great Britain. You're not living with
the times, my dear uncle. You're an old-fashioned diplomat. To-day the
world is very different to that in which your father was born."
"I quite agree. And I regret that it is so," I replied. "These are
surely very lax and degenerating days, when girls may go out
unchaperoned, and the meeting of a man in the early hours of the morning
passes unremarked."
"It unfortunately hasn't passed unremarked," she said, with a pretty
pout. "You take jolly good care to rub it in every moment! It really
isn't fair," she declared. "I'm very fond of you, Uncle Colin, but you
are really a little too old-fashioned."
"You are comparing me with young Drury, I suppose?"
"Oh, Dick isn't a bit old-fashioned, I assure you," she declared. "He's
been at Oxford. He doesn't dream and let the world go by. But, Uncle
Colin," she went on, "I wonder that you, a diplomat, are so stiff and
proper. I suppose it's the approved British diplomatic training. I'm
only a girl, and therefore am not supposed to know any of the tremendous
secrets of diplomacy. But it always strikes me that, for the most part,
you diplomats are exceptionally dull folk. In our Court circle we
always declare them to be inflated with a sense of their own importance,
and fifty years behind the times."
I laughed outright. Her view was certainly a common-sense one. The
whole training of British diplomacy is to continue the traditions of
Pitt and Beaconsfield. Diplomacy does not, alas! admit a new and modern
_regime_ affecting the world; it ignores modern thought, modern
conditions and modern methods. "Up-to-date" is an expression unknown in
the diplomat's vocabulary. The Foreign Office instil the lazy,
do-nothing policy of the past, the traditions of Palmerston, Clarendon
and Dudley are still the traditions of to-day in every British Embassy
throughout the world; and, unfortunately for Britain, the lesson has yet
to be learned by our diplomacy that to be strong is to be acute and
subtle, and to be dictatorial is to be entirely up-to-date. The German
diplomacy is that of keen progress and anticipation; that of Turkey
craft and cunning; of France, tact, with exquisite politeness. But
Britain pursues her heavy, blundering "John Bull" programme, which,
though effective in the days of Beaconsfield, now only results in the
nation's isolation and derision, certain of her ambassadors to the
Powers being familiarly known at the Courts to which they are accredited
as "The Man with the Gun."
"What you say is, in a sense, quite true," I admitted. "But I'm so
sorry if I'm really very dull. I don't mean to be."
"Oh! You'll improve under my tuition--and Dick's--no doubt," she
exclaimed reassuringly.
Her Highness was nothing if not outspoken.
"The fact is, Uncle Colin," she went on seriously, "you're far too
old-fashioned for your age. You are not old, but your ideas are so
horribly antiquated. Girls of to-day are allowed a freedom which our
grandmothers would have held as perfectly sinful. Girls have become
independent. A young fellow takes a girl out to dinner and to the
theatre, and even to supper nowadays, and nobody holds up their hands in
pious horror--only you! It isn't fair," she declared.
"Girls of the people are allowed a great deal of latitude, I admit. And
as far as I can see, the world is none the worse for it," I said. "But
what other girls may do, you, an Imperial Highness, unfortunately may
not."
"That's just where we don't agree," she said in a tone meant to be
impertinent, her straight nose slightly raised as she spoke. "I intend
to do as other girls do--at least, while I'm plain Miss Gottorp. They
call me the `Little Alien'--so Miss West heard me called the other day."
"No," I said very firmly, looking straight at her as she lolled easily
in her chair, her chin resting on her white palm as she gazed at me from
beneath her long, dark lashes. "You really must respect the
_convenances_. If you take a stroll with young Drury, do so at least in
the daylight."
"And with Dmitri watching me all the time from across the road. Not
quite," she said. "I like the Esplanade when it is quiet and everybody
is in bed. It is so pleasant on these warm nights to sit upon a seat
and enjoy the moonlight on the sea. Sounds like an extract from a
novel, doesn't it?" and she laughed merrily.
"I fear you are becoming romantic," I said. "Every girl becomes so at
one period of her life."
"Do you think so?" she asked, smiling. "Myself, I don't fancy I have
any romance in me. The Romanoffs are not a romantic lot as a rule.
They are usually too mercenary. I love nice things."
"Because you are cultured and possess good taste. That is exactly what
leads to romance."
"I have the good taste to choose Dick as a friend, I suppose you mean?"
she asked, with an intention to irritate me.
"Ah, I did not exactly say that."
"But you meant it, nevertheless. You know you did, Uncle Colin."
I did not reply for a few moments. I was recalling what Dmitri had told
me--that strange allegation of his that this young man, Richard Drury,
was an enigma, an adventurer. He had told me that he was no fit
companion for her, and yet when pressed he apparently could give no
plain reason. He had been unable to discover much concerning the young
fellow--probably because of his failure it seemed he had become
convinced that the object of his inquiry was an adventurer.
Suddenly rising, I stood before her, and placing my hand upon her
shoulder, said:
"I came here this morning to speak to you very seriously, Natalia. Can
you really be serious for once?"
"I'm always serious," she replied. "Well--another lecture?"
"No, not a lecture, you incorrigible little flirt. I want to ask you a
plain question. Please answer me, for a great deal--a very great deal--
depends upon it. Are you aware of what was contained in those letters
which Madame de Rosen gave you for safe-keeping?"
"I have long ago assured you that I am. Why do you ask again?"
"Because there is one point which I wish to clear up," I said. "I
thought you told me that they were in a sealed envelope?"
"So they were. But when I heard of Marya's exile, and that Luba had
been sent with her, I broke open the seal and investigated the
contents."
"And what did you find?"
"Ah! That is my business, Uncle Colin. I have already told you that I
absolutely refuse to betray the secrets of my poor dear friend. You
surely ought not to ask me. You have no right to press me to commit
such a breach of trust."
"I ask you because so much depends upon the extent of your knowledge," I
said. "I have already solved the secret of the disappearance of the
letters from the place where you hid them in the palace."
"Then you know who stole them!" she gasped, starting to her feet. "Tell
me. Who was the thief?"
"A man whom you do not know. He has confessed to me. He was not a
willing thief, but a wretched assassin, whom General Markoff holds as
his catspaw, and compels to perform his dirty work."
"Then the General has secured them! My suspicions are confirmed!" she
gasped, all the colour dying from her beautiful face.
"He has. The theft was committed under compulsion, and at imminent risk
to the thief, who most certainly would have been shot by the sentries,
if discovered. The letters were handed by him back to General Markoff."
My words held her dumbfounded for a few seconds. She did not speak.
Then she said in a hard, changed tone:
"Ah! Markoff has destroyed them! The proof no longer exists, therefore
I am powerless! How I wish I were permitted to speak--to reveal the
truth!"
Her teeth were set, her face was white and hard, and the fingers of both
hands had clenched themselves into the palms.
"But you know the truth!" I cried. "Will you not speak? Will you
never reveal it? It is surely your duty to do so," I urged.
But she only shook her head sadly, saying:
"I cannot betray her confidence."
"Remember," I said, "by exposing this secret which Markoff has been at
such infinite pains to keep, you can perhaps obtain the release of poor
Marya and her daughter! Is it not your plain duty?" I urged in a low,
earnest voice.
But she only again shook her head resolutely.
"No, I cannot expose the secrets of my lost friend. It was her secret
which I swore to her I would never reveal," she responded in a harsh,
strained voice. "Markoff has secured the proofs and destroyed them. I
suspected it from the first. That brute is my bitterest enemy, as he is
also Marya's. But, alas! he is all-powerful! He has played a clever
double game--and he has won--_he has won_!"