ONE WOMAN--OR TWO?
And so this famous beauty, this proud daughter of Russia’s proudest
nobility, was the unknown girl of his strange adventure, was the
working-girl who had talked so passionately of liberty! Now, in this
almost royal circle, she was cold and haughty and disdainful, her
manner as lofty toward all beneath her as could have been the highest
of French noblewomen’s in the days before the Revolution overwhelmed
France with its cataclysm;--and yet, how she had flamed forth in
her love of the people! How it could all be was almost too much for
Drexel’s reeling brain; but that wonderful grace, those wonderful eyes,
that wonderful face--Russia held not their duplicate!
Until this moment it had not occurred to him that there had been
anything unworthy in his proposal of marriage. But now, swift after
the first blow of astonishment, he grew hot with shame through all
his body. He had, in high-born, lofty fashion offered to lift her out
of her poverty and give her wealth; he whose wealth was all yet to be
made, to her one of Russia’s richest heiresses. He had spoken of his
birth, and had offered her position and family; he who barely knew the
name of his grandfather’s father, to her whose forebears were great
nobles when the Norsemen made their storied voyage to America; whose
line went back and back even to the mighty Rurick, and then disappeared
into the mist of legend that hangs over all things Russian before the
ninth century.
But there were too many stirring puzzles here for even shame to
dominate him long. He had been with her in this same St. Petersburg in
her role of working-girl but four evenings ago, yet how was it that
to-day she had arrived in state from abroad? And why had she caused him
to be held a prisoner? And what would be the effect on her, who thought
him safe under guard, suddenly to face him?
But the questions that surged into his mind had no time to complete
themselves, much less to find answers, for the princess had crossed the
ball-room and was now but a few yards distant. He was certain she had
not seen him, and he turned his back to avoid her for a double reason;
because, in his shame he shrunk from the meeting, and because he feared
seeing him there unexpectedly might deeply startle her and even be her
betrayal. But a hand fell upon his arm, and a voice in French--Prince
Berloff’s voice--fell upon his ears:
“Drexel, I want you to meet my cousin, Princess Valenko.”
He would have spared her this public show of her dismay if he could,
but now it was beyond him. Hating himself that it fell to his part
thus to be her undoing, he turned and looked her in the face.
But there was no falling back, no consternation, not so much as a
start. She gave him a straight cold look, in which there was not the
faintest recognition of a previous meeting.
So surprised was he by her self-command that he could only mumble his
way through the introduction, and he only vaguely heard her express
in composed, formal phrases her pleasure at meeting one who was in a
manner to be a relative. Then the others who had surrounded her were
for a moment swept away, and they two were left alone together, face to
face.
The few sentences they had exchanged had been in French. “Princess, I
want to apologize--yes, a thousand times,” Drexel said hurriedly in
English, “for the caddish way I spoke to you four nights ago.”
Her answer was to gaze at him with a puzzled, blank expression.
“I cannot tell you how ashamed I am,” Drexel hurried on. “And I
want to assure you”--this barely above a whisper and with all his
earnestness--“that I shall never breathe a word of your secret.”
Still the puzzled, blank expression.
“Won’t you--after a time--forgive me? And won’t you trust me?”
Still she wore the same non-understanding look.
Suddenly a dazing idea flashed into him. “Perhaps you do not speak
English?” he asked in French.
She smiled faintly, in amused bewilderment. “Yes--a vair leetle,” she
said, in anything but Sonya’s pure and fluent English. “I understand
Meestair Drexel’s words. But what he means--” She shook her head. “I
think you make some meestake.”
She was carried away from him before he could speak again, giving him
a half-friendly nod from her imperious head. After all, had he made a
mistake? After all, was it possible that she was not Sonya? Could it be
that he was the witness and victim of one of those strange caprices of
nature which now and again casts two unrelated persons, perhaps from
the extremes of the social scale, in the same mould? Could it be that
Sonya was merely the double of Princess Valenko? Or was this just an
unparalleled exhibition of nerve on the princess’s part--a marvellous
bit of acting?
Never was a man more mystified than Drexel. All during the ball the
questions ran through his mind, and sometimes the answers were yes, and
sometimes no. Once he danced with the princess, but that relieved his
bewilderment not at all, for she was perfectly at her ease, smilingly
remarked once or twice in her hesitating English upon his mistake, and
accorded him that faintly gracious treatment such a high-born beauty
might naturally bestow upon a relative of a relative-to-be.
Finally, toward two o’clock, Drexel decided he could best think the
matter over in solitude, and he started home, walking for the sake of
the brain-clearing fresh air. He had gone but a hundred yards or so
when he became conscious that two shadowy forms were moving ahead of
him, and one was lurking in the rear. The first two suddenly vanished,
but the events of the last few days had made him alert for danger; his
eyes went everywhere, and he held himself in tense readiness, so that
when the two made a sudden rush at him from a breach in the river-wall,
he quickly side-stepped, and sped along the river till he sighted a
wandering sleigh. Back in the security of his room, he realized that
the revolutionists were not through with him, and that he was in danger
every time he left his four walls.
But he had greater matters to consider than this. During most of
the night, and all the next morning, he was thinking over the many
questions that beset his mind. Foremost, was or was not Sonya
identical with Princess Valenko? He considered their points of
similarity--weighed this against that. But at every turn he was balked
by the fact that Sonya had tried to seize documents from Berloff’s
house, and yet Berloff had last night treated the princess with most
deferential courtesy--by the fact that only the day before she had
arrived in aristocratic splendour from abroad--by her cool, smiling
ignorance of him and what he talked of.
But finally, casting all bewildering pros and cons aside, he concluded
that if such a high-spirited woman as the princess had been leading
such a dangerous double life and had found herself in such a situation
as last night’s, her behaviour would have been identical with the
princess’s--she would have tried to brazen it through and make him
think himself mistaken. They were one and the same, he decided; two
such rare women, so similar, could not exist. And if they were the
same, he could well understand why she had feared him and caused his
capture. He had known her in the role of revolutionist, there was
likelihood of his meeting her as Princess Valenko--and his discovery of
their identicality would, as her fear viewed it, be disaster for her.
He at length shaped a plan, based on his love for her, on his desire to
relieve her of her needless fear, and on the constant danger in which
he stood. That afternoon he drove to the Princess Valenko’s. On the way
he gave a look over his shoulder. A block behind in a sleigh he saw two
men wrapped to the eyes, yet not so bundled up but that he recognized
Ivan and Nicolai; and near them in another sleigh were two other men
whom he instinctively felt to be their confederates.
Before his ring at the Valenko palace had been answered, he saw the two
sleighs draw up across the street half a block ahead. Once admitted, he
had not long to wait, but was ushered up a broad stairway into a great
front drawing-room. He had hoped to find the princess alone; great,
therefore, was his disappointment when he found himself with four
gorgeous young officers and three women, all centring about her.
Without rising she gave him her hand, and smiled with distant,
condescending friendship. “Ah--the American who is almost my relative,”
she said in French; and proceeded with imperious languor to introduce
him to the women and to the immaculate, gilded officers, to all of
whom he bowed--though the latter he inwardly cursed as the brainless
handiwork of tailors and valets.
She smiled amusedly into his face, and then about at the others. “He
thinks, my almost relative”--with a little gesture toward him--“that he
met me a few days ago here in St. Petersburg. And that--in what manner
he has not said--he misconducted himself on that occasion. And that he
shares some great secret of mine.”
Drexel fairly gasped. She had flung away her secret--and there she sat,
easy, unconcerned, smiling.
“But impossible!” cried one of the officers. “The princess has been
abroad since August.”
“Why it is simply absurd, monsieur,” said a stupid-looking,
richly-dressed woman. “You remember, Olga--” this to the
princess--“it’s only two weeks since you and I heard Tannhäuser
together in Berlin. Ugh--what a wretched Elizabeth she was! And we
came back yesterday from Berlin on the same train!”
“Yes,” returned the princess, smiling her slight, amused smile at
Drexel. “But still I would not think of disputing the matter with
Monsieur Drexel. Americans are so clever, you know.”
They all laughed at this. Drexel felt his conclusions going all to
pieces, felt himself plunged again into the old uncertainty.
“Just a stupid mistake on my part, of course,” he said, rather
doggedly. “I hope the princess will pardon me.”
After that the talk ran back to its subject before Drexel had
entered--welcome to the princess--gossip about this person and
that--chat about functions to come. Drexel was left quite out of the
conversation, but this gave him time to form a determination to outstay
all the others and have it out with the princess in private. This plan,
however, was not so easy of achievement. The others, to be sure, took
their leave in ones and pairs, but more callers came in their stead.
He got a polite glance from the princess now and then, which, being
interpreted, meant that he had far exceeded the limits of a call. But
he sat grimly on.
At length he had his reward. But he was certain of having her to
himself for no more than a moment, so the instant the last back was out
of the door he drew his chair before her, leaned forward, and looked
her squarely in the face.
“Princess,” said he in English, “you have the makings of the greatest
poker player in the world.”
“Pokair playair!” returned she in her halting English. Her face was
puzzled. “I not understand.”
“Do you know what a ‘bluffer’ is?”
“‘Bluffair’? Yes, I know. A vair American word.”
“Well, you could make the biggest bluffer in America seem a naïve
child.”
“Excuse”--with a shrug. “What you mean?”
He spoke with sharp decision. “Your pretending not to know me, and all
the rest, is what we would call a bluff. You are the woman I met on the
railroad train six nights ago. You are the woman I talked with five
nights ago. I know! There’s no use denying it!”
Her eyes did not flinch from his determined gaze; rather they took on a
bored look.
“Pardon me,” said she quietly, “perhaps Meestair Drexel is one--what
you call it--one bluffair?”
Drexel was not at all certain he was not just that. But his face showed
none of his doubt.
“You are afraid of me because chance revealed to me your secret,” he
went on. “Now I have come here to tell you that you have no reason to
fear me. To tell you that you can trust me.”
She rose and looked at him haughtily. “You carry your amusement too
far,” she said, lapsing into French. “I am tired. I beg that you will
excuse me.”
She started to sweep out of the room, but Drexel blocked her way.
“I have come to tell you,” he went on doggedly, “that to relieve you of
any sense of danger from me, I am willing, this minute, to yield myself
your prisoner, to be held as long as you desire.”
“Will you let me pass!” said she.
“As soon as you have answered me.”
Her lips curled with contempt. “Even were I what you say, even had I
the wish to take you prisoner, how could I take and hold you in this
house? Again you must excuse me.”
He blocked her way once more. “At least, you will cross with me to the
window?”
“If you will then be so kind--”
“Yes, I will then go, princess. Come!”
He crossed the drawing-room, parted the curtains at one of the windows,
and pointed down to where along the river-wall, through the falling
twilight, could be seen the two sleighs.
“In those sleighs, princess,” said he, “Ivan and Nicolai--you know
them--followed me here. They and two others. See that man lounging
across the street; that is Ivan, waiting for me to come out. I desire
that you shall have no fear of me. So I am going over there to deliver
myself back into their hands. I will send a note to my people saying I
have been called to Moscow on business for an indefinite time. That is
all. I wish you good-afternoon.”
With that he bowed, and not waiting for a reply he strode from the
room. Two minutes later he was across the street and beside one of the
sleighs.
“Hello, comrades!” he cried with a reckless laugh. “Get in. I’m going
with you.”
Nicolai and Ivan eyed him with silent suspicion, but they crawled in,
one on either side. The sleigh was so narrow that Drexel had to sit
upon their knees.
“Now, comrades,” he went on, as they were drawing the robes high about
them, “as I’m going to be a guest at that hotel of yours for some time,
let’s stop along the way and get a mattress that isn’t paved with
cobblestones. I don’t exactly fancy-- Hello! What’s that?”
A blunt object had suddenly been thrust against the middle of his back.
“That,” explained Ivan, “is the muzzle of your Browning.”
“If you’re going to return my property,” said Drexel, “I wish you’d
return it by some less direct route. You might hand it around me, for
instance.”
“We don’t know your game,” said Nicolai, “but if you make one
suspicious move, or one cry, that pistol will go off.”
“All right. But say there, Ivan, be careful, will you! I’ve got used to
that spinal column of mine, and if you spoiled it I might never get
another that suited me as well. Drive on.”
The horse started up. But before it had fairly swung into a trot, some
one running behind cried out, “Wait! Wait!”
They drew up, and a man thrust a piece of paper into Nicolai’s hand and
immediately turned back. Nicolai opened the paper and glanced at it.
“Of all the strange things!” he cried, and turned the paper over to
Ivan.
“The devil!” exclaimed Ivan. “Where did it come from?”
“The man who brought it looks like a servant,” said Nicolai, who was
peering over his shoulder. “He is entering that great house.”
“More wonderful still!” cried Ivan. “But the writing is certainly hers!”
“And the signature! And an order is an order.”
“Yes.”
“See here, boys,” spoke up the mystified Drexel. “What does all this
mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Nicolai, as he threw open the robes. “But the
order says you are to go back to the person you were talking to.”
Drexel sprang from the sleigh. “Good-bye,” he shouted, and made for the
Valenko door.
The footman ushered him up past the drawing-room, where he had so
lately sat, and in which he glimpsed several new callers, and on back
into a small rear drawing-room. Here an open fire was blazing, and
beside it stood the tall slender figure of the princess, the same
haughty, magnificent pride in her bearing. She did not give Drexel a
look. He paused within the door, wondering, palpitant.
“Andrei,” said she to the footman, “give my excuses to any persons
waiting and any who may come, and say that for the present I am
engaged.”
“Yes, princess.”
“And, Andrei--shut the door.”
“Yes, princess.”
As the door closed the pride and hauteur suddenly faded out of her, and
there she was smiling at him brightly, half-mischievously.
“Well, John--” said she, in easy English.