CAUGHT IN THE CURRENT
With her chin in one slender, exquisitely gloved hand, she stared out
into the flying darkness. As for Drexel, not another thought went to
America or to fortune-building. The moment he had seen that darkly
beautiful figure a thrill had gone through him and a dizzying something
that choked him had risen into his throat.
Her fixed gaze into the outward blackness gave him his chance and he
was not the man to squander it. He eyed her steadily, noticed that she
breathed quickly, as though she had hurried for the train--noticed how
white and even were the teeth between her barely parted lips--noticed
again how smooth was the texture of her skin and how like rich old
marble was its colour--noticed how finely chiselled were all her
features, how small the ear that nestled up in her dark hair. He
wondered who she was, and what. But who, or what, she was decidedly a
Russian, and decidedly the most beautiful woman he had seen in all the
Czar’s wide realm.
Once he gazed out the window, with the purpose that he might look back
upon her with the freshness of a first glance. When he turned, it was
to give a start. She was gazing straight at him. And her eyes did not
fall or turn when met by his. She continued to gaze straight into his
face, with those black-lashed blue eyes of hers, such a blue as he had
never before seen--with no overture in her look, no invitation, no whit
of coquetry--continued peering, peering, as though studying the very
fibre of his soul.
What her outward eye saw was a figure of lithe strength, built as the
man should be built who had been his university’s greatest tackle, and
a dark-mustached, square-chinned, steady-eyed face that bespoke power
and one used to recognition and authority.
Drexel met her gaze with held breath, in suspense as to what remarkable
event this remarkable look would the next minute lead to. But it led to
none. She merely turned her eyes back into the darkness.
He noticed now that she seemed a little tense, as though mastering
some emotion. But other things claimed his thoughts above this. He
wanted to speak to her--wondered if he dared; but, despite that long
direct look, despite her walking into his private compartment, he knew
she was not the woman with whom one could pick up acquaintance on a
train. He saw what was going to happen; they would ride on thus to St.
Petersburg--part without a word--never see each other again.
The train sped on. At length they neared the environs of the capital.
They stopped at a station where lay a train from St. Petersburg, then
started up again. It seemed to Drexel that her tensity was deepening.
“Pardon,” suddenly said a voice at the door.
Both Drexel and the girl looked about. There stood a big-bodied,
bearded man in the long gray coat of a captain of gendarmes.
“What is it?” Drexel curtly demanded in his broken Russian. The young
woman said nothing.
The captain entered. He had the deference which the political police
show the well-dressed and the obviously well-born, but can never spare
the poor.
“Excuse me,” said he, “I must examine madame.”
The young woman paled, but her voice rang with indignation. “What do
you mean?”
It was a distinct surprise to Drexel that her Russian was also
broken--but little better than his own.
“It is my duty, madame,” returned the officer. “I am sorry, but I must
discharge my duty.”
She rose in her superb beauty and flashed a look at the captain that
made Drexel’s heart leap, so much of fire and spirit did it reveal.
“Duty or no duty, I shall accept no indignity at your hands!” she cried.
The officer hesitated. “My orders are my orders, as madame must know.
What I do here I must do through all the train; no woman can leave
till she has been examined. But I shall go no farther than necessary.
Perhaps madame’s passport will be sufficient. That, madame knows, she
must always show upon request.”
The young woman’s indignation subsided, and she sat down and reached
for her leather bag. Drexel had been in Russia long enough to know
this searching of a train meant that something had happened. And he
knew how formidable was this officer--not in himself, but in what he
represented, what was massed behind him: a quarter of a million of
political police and spies, hundreds of prisons, Siberian exile, the
scaffold, blindfolded death from rifle volleys.
Both Drexel and the captain closely watched the young woman. She went
through the notes and few articles for the toilet in the little bag;
and then a look of annoyance came over her face. Drexel’s heart beat
high. He knew what faced the person who had no passport.
She went through the little bag again--and again found nothing.
The captain’s eyes had grown suspicious. “Well, your passport, madame!”
he cried roughly. “Or you come with me!”
Drexel knew she was in danger, and in a flash he thought of a dozen
wild things that he might do to aid her. But he thought of nothing so
wild as what next occurred.
She looked up from her bag and turned those wonderful eyes straight
into his face--and smiled! The intimate, domestic, worried smile that
a wife might give her husband.
“John, dear,” she said in purest English, “that bothersome passport
must have been packed in among your things.”
Henry Drexel may have been unconscious for some portion of an instant.
But the captain, who had turned to him, saw never a blink, never a
falter.
“Why, perhaps it was, Mary,” said he, and he reached for his bag.
The world whizzed about him as he went through the form of searching
his suit-case; but he showed only a perplexed, annoyed face when he
looked up.
“We must have left it out altogether, Mary,” he said, speaking in
Russian for the sake of the captain.
“How provoking!” cried she, likewise in Russian.
But this play-acting, good though it was, was not enough to
counterbalance “orders.” “I’ve got nothing to do with forgotten
passports,” said the captain. He seized her arm. “You’ll have to come
with me!”
She gave Drexel a quick look. But he did not need it. Already he was on
his feet.
“Don’t you dare touch my wife!” he cried, and he furiously flung the
captain’s hand away.
The captain glared. “I’ll do what--”
“You won’t!” snapped Drexel. He pressed his chest squarely against
that of the officer. “You dare touch my wife--the wife of an American
citizen--and see what happens to you when I make my complaint! It will
be the worst mistake of your life! As for this passport business,
as soon as we get to Petersburg I shall fix it up with the chief of
police.” He pointed at the door. “Now--you leave us!”
The captain looked at the broad-shouldered young fellow, with the
determined face and the flashing eyes. Looked and hesitated, for
Drexel’s dominant bearing was not only the bearing of wrathful
innocence, but it was eloquent of power to carry out his threat.
The captain wavered, then broke. “I hope monsieur will excuse----”
“Good-bye!” said Drexel sharply.
The captain bowed and stumbled out. When Drexel turned the young woman
was breathing rapidly and her face spoke many sensations--relief,
excitement, gratitude, perhaps a glint of admiration.
She gave him that direct gaze of hers and held out her hand. “Thank
you--very much,” she said simply, in English.
“I’m afraid I was rather melodramatic,” returned Drexel, somewhat
lamely.
“You could not have done it better. Thank you.”
[Illustration: _“John, dear,” she said in purest English, “that
bothersome passport must have been packed among your things”_]
They sat down and for a moment looked at each other in silence. Her
breath still came sharply. He was eager to know the meaning of all
this; he was sure she would explain; but he said nothing, leaving it
to her to speak or keep silent, as she would.
She saw his curiosity. “You are surprised?”
“I confess it.”
“I am sorry so poorly to reward what you have done. But I cannot
explain.”
He inclined his head. “As you please.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
If Drexel had thought this incident was to establish them at once in
close acquaintance, that hope soon began to suffer disappointment.
There was no lack of courtesy, of gratitude, in her manner; he was
already so far in her confidence that she dropped her mask of perfect
control, and let him see that she was palpitantly alert and fearful;
but she spoke to him no more than a bare monosyllable or two. Her
fear spread to him. Mixed with his wonderment as to who she was, and
what was this mysterious danger that menaced her, was a trembling
apprehension lest the captain, recovered from his intimidation, should
reappear in the compartment.
But the captain did not reappear, and they rode on in their strange,
strained silence. When the train drew into the Nicholayevsky Station in
St. Petersburg, Drexel started to help her from the coach. She tried to
check him, but he had her out upon the platform before she could say a
word.
She quickly held out her hand. “Good-bye,” she said hurriedly.
“Good-bye?” he cried in dismay.
“Yes. We shall not meet again.”
An icy chill swept through him. “Not meet again! Why, I had hoped that
you would let me come--”
“You cannot come,” she went on swiftly. “And you must not try to follow
me.”
That was the plan that had instantly shot into his head. “But--” he
pleaded.
“You must not!”
He hesitated.
A look from those blue eyes, straight into his own. “You will not. I
trust you.”
He bowed his head. “I shall not.”
“Good-bye--and thank you,” said she.
He gripped her hand. “Good-bye,” he said. And he gathered in his last
look of her.
But suddenly, when he thought he had lost her, her hand slipped through
his arm--slipped through it as with wifely habit--and she was saying to
him in a hurried whisper:
“Don’t look back. That gendarme captain is working this way. I think
he’s not wholly satisfied. I must at least leave with you. Come.”
Again Drexel did not blink. Instantly he was leading her along the
platform, arm in arm, with the easy manner of four or five married
years. In the open square before the station scores of bearded
drivers, swathed in blankets till they looked like bulky mummies,
were clamorously shouting, “_Isvochtchik! Isvochtchik!_” One of these
Drexel signalled. He was helping her into the little sleigh when he
saw her give a calm, steady look to some one behind him. Turning, he
saw the captain, for whom a sleigh was drawing up to the curb. Drexel
gave him a curt nod, stepped into the foot-high sleigh and drew the fur
robe about them. The driver cracked his whip and the horse sprang away.
“After a few blocks you can set me down,” she whispered.
For even that respite Drexel was grateful.
“Where shall I take my lord?” came over the driver’s shoulder.
“Up Nevsky Prospect,” Drexel ordered.
They turned into bright-lit Nevsky Prospect, thronged with flashing
sleighs, and glided without speech over the polished snow. After a few
moments she glanced back. She clutched his arm.
“He is behind us!”
He did not need to be told not to turn his head. “The captain?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he is following us?”
“Perhaps he is only taking the same direction by chance. Let us stop a
few times. That will show us.”
Drexel gave the necessary orders. They made a stop at a fruit store,
another at a confectioner’s--but when she looked back, there, at a
distance, was the captain jogging in their tracks.
“He is following--that’s certain!” she breathed.
“He is suspicious, but hesitates to do anything, and thinks it wisest
to watch us. Apparently there is no shaking him.”
Suddenly a new idea rushed into Drexel’s head. He looked down into her
face; he tried to speak steadily--tried to keep his joy out of his
voice.
“Do you remember what we told that officer--that we were husband and
wife?”
“Yes.”
“Till we can get rid of him, our only safety is in keeping up that
pretence. If we make one suspicious move he will pounce upon us. You
and I, we must stay together.”
She was silent.
“Don’t you see that?” he asked.
“Yes. But the danger to you?”
“That? That is nothing!” he cried. “Will you come with me?”
She looked steadily at him a moment.
“I will come,” she said.
For an instant he considered at what hotel there was least
danger of his being recognized. “_Isvochtchik_, to the Hotel
Metropole--straight!” he ordered.
Ten minutes later they were standing in the hotel lobby, her arm in
his, two porters industriously brushing the snow off their long fur
coats, and a gold-braided major-domo before them.
“I suppose,” said Drexel, “you have a room for myself and wife?”
“Certainly, sir,” said the bowing major-domo.
“Ah--say two rooms, with a connecting door?”
“Certainly. I will show you.”
Drexel followed, and the young woman, with perfect poise, with a grace
that made him marvel, swept up the stairway at his side. The two rooms
were large, each with a great white-tiled stove filling one corner from
floor to ceiling, with long windows looking out upon the street--and
with, between the two, the required door.
Were the rooms satisfactory? Entirely so. Would madame or monsieur
desire anything for their comfort? If they did they would order it
later.
When the major-domo and the porter who had brought up Drexel’s
suit-case were gone, and Drexel was left standing alone in the larger
room with that brilliantly beautiful creature, he was swept with a
desire that this marriage game they played--a game involving life and
death, and far, far more, for aught he knew--were not a game at all,
but a reality.
But he mastered himself. It was only a game--and he had to see the game
through to the end.
“This room will be yours,” said he.
“Very well,” said she.
He stepped to the connecting door and changed the key to her side of
the lock. She thanked him with a look.
“Perhaps you would like something to eat?” he suggested.
“Nothing.”
He wanted to remain and talk with her, yet the situation was such
that the suggestion had to come from her. He hesitated near the door,
waiting--but the invitation did not come.
“I shall put out my light,” he said, “but I shall not go to bed. If you
need me, just call. Good-night.”
Suddenly she came across the room to him, her hand outstretched, her
dark face glowing.
“Forgive me if I seem unthankful,” she said in her rich low voice. “I
am not. And forgive me because I can say so little. Perhaps the time
will come when I can tell you all, and thank you as you deserve. But
please understand that I understand, and that I appreciate, what you
have done for me, and the danger you are now incurring in being here.”
As he looked into her glowing eyes, his words burst out of their own
accord. “I would rather be here than any place else in the world!”
She flushed slightly under his gaze. “Good-night--” and she pressed his
hand.
“Good-night,” said he.
He stepped into the other room, and the next moment the key turned in
the lock.