“YOU AND I--AGAINST THE WORLD”
He drew slowly near her.
“So after all, you are----”
The smile grew more mischievous. “Mary Davis, of course. Whom did you
think?”
He was pulsing with exultant wildness; but he knew well that he had to
hold himself under control.
“Then,” said he, “you at last trust me?”
“What you were just about to do proved your sincerity. I could not let
you go further with it. But come--please sit down.”
He first pushed a chair for her before the fireplace, then drew one up
beside her. Her smile sobered and she looked at him steadily.
“Yes, I think I can trust you. There are your actions as proof. And
then, had you wanted to betray me, you have had plenty of time to do
so. Our ideals are separated by the width of the world--but I trust
your honour.”
“You can indeed!” was all he could say.
Her smile came back. Till this last minute he had never seen her really
smile, so had never seen but half her beauty.
“If I am not mistaken, you are a little curious?”
“I am dumbfounded!”
“You know so much already, there is no reason you should not know
more--provided it goes no further than yourself. First question?”
“I--I don’t know where to begin. Five days ago I saw you in St.
Petersburg. Yet it seems that all the while you have been in Berlin. I
think I can make a guess at the explanation, but----”
“Yes, it’s simple enough. First let me say that I was supposed to be
abroad for pleasure; in reality I was there on business affairs of the
revolutionists. Two weeks ago I suddenly announced that I was leaving
Berlin to visit a friend in France. I am known as very self-willed;
that explains and excuses much. I secretly entered Russia, as a poor
student, on a false passport. When I left you, five nights ago, I took
a train; three days ago I reappeared in Berlin from my French visit;
the next day I set out for Russia.”
“That’s much as I guessed,” said Drexel.
“I would have remained here in disguise longer,” she continued, “but
last night’s ball had been long arranged for, the invitations had been
out for a month, and I had already once postponed my homecoming. To
postpone it further was impossible.”
“But why did you, and not some less important person, undertake that
dangerous mission at Prince Berloff’s?”
“For two reasons. First, I was best qualified. And then----”
She paused and gazed at him keenly. “Yes, I shall tell you that. You
know the Government does not know who the prisoner Borodin is.”
“So I have been told.”
“And only half a dozen persons do know who he is. You have heard that I
have an older brother?”
“Who became involved with the revolutionists and disappeared four or
five years ago. And how your father--”
“Yes, to have a revolutionist in his family--that almost broke my
father’s proud heart. Well--Borodin is my brother.”
“Your brother!” Drexel ejaculated. “Ah, I see now why you were ready to
risk so many dangers. To save your brother!”
“To save my brother. And to save a leader whom the cause of liberty
cannot spare.”
“You must love him.”
“Dearly!” said she, and her blue eyes lighted up. “He is so noble,
single-hearted, brilliant!”
“But your father does not guess that Borodin is his son?”
“No.”
“And of course he does not know what you are at heart, what you have
done?”
“No. If he knew!” Her face saddened. “And sometime he must know, for I
cannot always successfully play this double part.”
Drexel, remembering the stern, proud old man, and knowing the love that
existed between the two, could but wonder what would happen on that
day when the general should learn the truth.
“It was the news of my brother’s arrest that brought me flying back to
Russia,” she went on. “I was best fitted for the mission of going to
Prince Berloff’s house.”
“But was it necessary for you to go to Berloff’s?” he broke in. “Could
you not have learned, without risk, Borodin’s whereabouts from your
father?”
“My father did not know and does not know. The heads of the secret
police were, for their own purpose, keeping the place of his
imprisonment a close secret. I was best suited for going to Prince
Berloff’s because, while my father was governor of a Siberian province,
Prince Berloff was in a way my guardian. I once lived at his house, and
since then I have visited there much, though not recently. So I knew
his house, and knew it well. I planned my call at a time when I knew he
was expected to be absent for a few hours.”
“Yes, but the servants,” said Drexel. “There was the danger that you
might be recognized by them.”
“But none had ever seen me before. He changes his servants every few
months.”
“Changes them?”
“That they may not learn too much and begin to suspect.”
“Suspect?”
“Yes. Who he is. Rather, what he is.”
“And what is he?”
She gazed at him steadily a moment. “Prince Berloff is the actual head
of Russia’s spy system.”
“What!” cried Drexel. And he sprang to his feet and stared at her.
“The master of Russia’s hundred thousand human bloodhounds,” she went
on with a sudden fierce abhorrence. “The cunningest, cruellest, most
unscrupulous man between Germany and the Pacific Ocean!”
“And this is the man that my cousin--” He looked at her blankly.
“Yes,” said she. “And the man I would have married, too, could my
father have had his way. He was after my money, just as he is after
your cousin’s. His ambition knows no limit--nor his unscrupulousness.
He uses his office to further his own ends. If any stand in the way
of his ambition, his control of the infamous machinery of the secret
police gives him power to do away with them in a dozen ways--by death,
exile, or imprisonment.”
“And he has done that?”
“Again and again. He would wipe me out of existence without a moment’s
hesitation could he safely do it; with my brother outlawed, that would
make him heir to my father’s estate. He will either be Russia’s prime
minister, or else, before then, some terrorist--” The lifting of her
shoulders spoke the rest.
A mystery that had puzzled Drexel for near a week was suddenly
illumined. “I see now why you feared me, that night in the hotel, when
I told you who I was!”
“Yes. The friend, the guest, the kinsman of Prince Berloff seemed
indeed a man to flee from.”
“To think that we have never guessed what he is!”
“Only a very few in the Government know the office he fills, and only
a few of us. He works through one or two trusty subordinates who are
nominally the head of the system.”
“But what are his reasons for this concealment?”
“In the first place, since no one suspects what he is, he can work
more craftily. In the second place--well, you can guess that a chief
of spies is not exactly a popular idol. Von Plevhe spent a million
rubles a year to protect his person, and even with that he died by a
terrorist’s bomb. Instead of defending himself by the vain expenditure
of a million on personal guards, Prince Berloff defends himself by
keeping his hated office a secret.”
“I see. But why have you revolutionists not exposed him?”
“We have kept the matter a secret for much the same reason that he has
kept it secret. So long as he believes himself unsuspected, we can work
all the better against him.”
He stared at her. He remembered how calmly, how haughtily she had stood
beside Prince Berloff, who had never a thought that the woman upon his
arm was his bitter enemy, was fighting him with her very wit. And then,
with a thrill of wonderment, he began to consider what a marvel it was
that this young woman who had everything--great wealth, princely birth,
such homage as was given to but few in a nation--everything that the
world prized, should care so little for them all.
“I cannot understand, princess--” he began slowly.
“Do not call me princess!” she interrupted, her face beginning to glow.
“I hate the word! Since you know me for what I am, call me what my
comrades call me. Call me Sonya.”
“It is hard for me to understand then, how you are willing to risk
position, rank, wealth--”
She rose and stood before him, her beauty heightened by the deepening
glow of her face, by the flash of her eyes.
“My position!” cried she, opening wide her arms. “My position! What won
me my position, my rank, my wealth? I will tell you. A thousand years
ago, and more, one of my ancestors was a strong man. He made himself
great by seizing the rights and property of others. The Government
helped him hold on to what he had seized, and during all the thousand
years since the Government has helped his descendents hold on to that
power and property and keep the disinherited ones, the robbed ones, in
subjection. And to-day it is helping me!
“People call me beautiful, cultured, noble. If this be true, why
is it true? Because for a thousand years thousands of people have
toiled, suffered, starved, been beaten down! I am the product of all
that misery! Not for a day, not for an hour, would I keep my position
were it not for one thing alone. I have a large income, all of which,
except what I need to maintain appearances, is now turned over to the
revolutionists; were I openly to join the revolutionists, that money,
which we need so much, would be confiscated and lost to us. The need of
this money forces me to hold my place; otherwise I would be openly in
the fight to regain the people their lost rights, to gain them rights
they have never had! To win their liberty, and all that liberty will
mean! Ah, the people! Our poor maimed and mourning people!”
As she spoke there was a vague sense in Drexel of the contrast between
them: she the apex of old-world aristocracy, giving her whole soul to
the people; he of the over-night American aristocracy, trampling upon
the people, giving his whole soul to winning that which she would so
gladly throw away. As she finished, standing before him a-tremble with
sympathy and passion, her superb beauty illumined by the inspiration of
her purpose, he felt himself fairly lifted to his feet; and thrilled,
he stretched out an eager hand to her.
“And I--I will help you!” he cried.
“You help?” Her lips half curled with scorn. “You with such ideals as
you expressed the other night!”
“Never mind ideals! I will help!”
Those eyes of blue searched him narrowly.
“If not impelled to help by ideals, then by what?”
He well knew by what; by her spirit, her personality, by his love--but
he cried:
“What impels me matters not, so long as I serve well and ask no reward!”
She considered a space, then said slowly: “No, we have no right to
refuse any trustworthy aid. And I know that I can trust you; and that
you have courage and readiness of wit. But, you have counted the risk?”
“I am ready for the risk!”
She was silent a moment. “You know what we are trying to do now. Our
present endeavour is but an incident of the great struggle; but the
future of the cause, the liberation of the people, depend largely upon
saving my brother from death.”
“I understand.”
“To-morrow I go to Prince Berloff’s house party, and so do you. The
reason I accepted the invitation was the opportunity offered for
continuing the search, interrupted the other day, for some document
revealing the whereabouts of my brother. You could help me, and help me
much.”
She held out her hand. “Shall it be you and I against Prince Berloff?”
He pressed her hand.
“You and I,” he half whispered, “against--” He checked the words that
rushed to his lips, but they sounded through all his being: “Against
the world!”