A BARGAIN IS RENEWED
The next day they all went down to Prince Berloff’s--the Howards, Sonya
and her father, Countess Baronova, Drexel, the prince, and besides
them half a dozen high-born men and women who, Drexel soon discovered,
had the grace and polish of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting, and a
paste-jewel sparkle of talk, but who were just narrowness and stupidity
surfaced with fine manners and fine clothes.
As Drexel had anticipated, Sonya wore toward him an air of haughty
negligence--an air that held no faintest hint that they were on terms
of friendship, much less that between them was a secret pact. He could
but compare this cold creature of imperious indifference that the
world saw with the frank, glowing, inspiring and inspired woman who
the afternoon before had opened her soul to him. Though his uncle drew
him aside and talked traction deal, and though he nodded now and then,
Drexel took in hardly one of the fortune-pregnant sentences; his mind
was all with Sonya. But he did not allow himself to think of love,
though all his being tingled with it. After the manner in which he had
proposed to her, offering to lift her to his shining heights out of her
poverty and insignificance, he hardly dare again approach the subject.
Besides, for all his American pride, he felt her to be immeasurably
beyond his reach.
But if Sonya was distant, there was one who was not. In the latter
half of the short journey Mr. Howard was summoned forward by his wife,
and Drexel was following his uncle, when he was met in the corridor by
Countess Baronova.
“I know your uncle was sent for; are you, too, under orders?” she asked
lightly, with a smile.
“No.”
“Then, sir, I put you under orders. Come, talk to me.”
He fell in with her playful spirit, and bowed with an air that mocked
the St. Petersburg courtiers. “Madame, I obey.”
“Come, then.”
She led the way back to a compartment in the rear of the car and they
sat down facing each other. She was in a travelling gown of black
velvet with long sweeping lines, and the black note was repeated with
staccato effect by the studs of jet in her ears, and by her brilliant
eyes; a darkly fascinating being whose gaze was open and direct, whose
clear-skinned beauty was honest, owing not a tittle, as does most noble
St. Petersburg beauty, to the false testimony of bleaching compounds
and rouge-pots.
She leaned back with luxurious grace and smiled at him with frank good
humour. “I know I’m very brazen to capture you in this manner, but
that’s the privilege of an elderly widow.”
“Elderly?”
“Twenty-seven, sir!”
“Then that puts me, too, in the decrepit class.”
“Oh, a single man never grows too old for woman to smile at. He’s
comparatively immortal.”
“Hum. And the moral to that is----”
“No, it isn’t. Be mortal--for some one woman’s sake. Thus the elderly
widow advises. But besides my old age,” she went on, “I have another
excuse for taking you prisoner. For a week or more I’ve been waiting to
have a little chat with you.”
“I’ve--ah--been in Moscow, you know,” explained Drexel.
“Yes, I know. But now at last I have you at my mercy.” Her smile faded
away, her face leaned nearer, and her rallying tone sank to a serious
whisper. “I want to talk on an important matter, Mr. Drexel, and I am
going to speak to you openly, frankly. I can play the diplomat, but
with a man of affairs like you, I know it is best to come straight to
the point.”
Since he had first met the countess, Drexel had known her as a popular
figure in the brilliant society frequented by the high officials
that surround the Czar and fill the ministries, by the smart and
noble officers of the Imperial Guard, by that ever-changing influx
of officers who, after representing for a year or two the Czar’s
autocratic might in some stupid, provincial town, or in some remote
army station, come to St. Petersburg to renew themselves with a few
months of the capital’s thoughtless gaiety. Yet he had guessed there
was something beneath her surface of society devotee. She had piqued
his curiosity, so now he felt a sudden flutter of interest as he said,
“Please go on.”
Her dark, lustrous eyes searched deep into his own for a silent
moment--then the elbow that supported her smooth cheek slipped yet
nearer along the window-sill, and her voice dropped to a yet softer
tone.
“You are a man to be trusted. I put myself, my life, in your hands.”
She glanced quickly at the door and back again. “I am a revolutionist.”
“A revolutionist!” he breathed.
“All my soul is with those who fight the Czar.”
He stared at her. Indeed, there was something beneath the surface! And
that two such women as she and the princess should----
She interrupted his surprise with her rapid, barely audible words.
“There is a noble part open to you, if you will only take it.”
“And that?”
“To help us.”
“How?”
“You have heard about Borodin--his arrest--what he means to the
revolutionary cause?”
“Yes.”
“To rescue him is what at this moment we revolutionists desire most of
all to do. If you would join us in that attempt, our chance of success
would be greatly increased.”
“Increased? How?”
“You are shrewd,” she whispered. “And you could attempt bolder things
than other men, for, your position being what it is, no one would
suspect you. Yes, you could do much--much!”
She took his silence as a wish for something further before he
answered. “If you will be with us I can arrange for you to meet our
active leaders at once, and take part in their secret plannings. I can
see from your face that you are wondering what, in return for all this,
will be your reward. You would have a life-long sense of having helped
a struggling nation to win the light.”
She hesitated--a soft red tinged her cheeks--her eyes fluttered down.
“And if the--the gratitude of a simple woman will mean anything--that
gratitude you would ever have.”
There was no mistaking what she meant. Here was a situation, indeed,
for a man newly in love! In his embarrassment Drexel knew not what to
say that would carry him swiftly and safely by this delicate crisis
in a manner to give no offense to the countess, whom he liked and
admired. He was floundering about in his mind for the proper phrase
when she raised her bright, flushed face and met his gaze frankly.
“If you decide to be with us,” she went on, “I have a definite plan to
suggest--one calling for immediate action. A plan I, personally, am
trying to carry through. I am sure we could make it succeed--you and I.”
All her warm, excited beauty, all her fascination, were directed at
him. He hardly knew how to parry.
“Before I decide,” he temporized, “I should want to know what the plan
is.”
“Lean nearer. It is this. I am trying--s-s-sh! Some one is coming! I’ll
tell you later, when the person goes.”
Her voice and face were all disappointment, but when Mr. Howard walked
into the compartment, she greeted him with an easy, good-humoured
smile. However, her plan Drexel was not then to know, for the journey
ended without giving her an opportunity to finish what she had begun.
At the station were waiting four two-seated sleighs, each with three
splendid blacks hitched abreast. It fell out that Drexel, the countess,
Sonya and Berloff got into one sleigh, Sonya and Berloff in the front
seat. As they flashed over the flat white country, tucked away in
frozen sleep, Drexel involuntarily compared these two women, the one he
did not love and felt sure he could have, and the one he did love and
knew he could not have--both beautiful, both clever, both so different
from what they seemed to the world--both involved in the dangerous
underground struggle against the Czar.
He could but notice with what ease Sonya talked with Berloff, that
powerful antagonist with whom she was in deadly duel. He studied
Berloff anew in the light of her startling revelation, and he saw anew
the power, the resourcefulness, the relentless cunning behind that
pale, refined face. In a struggle of wits against wits, he was an
adversary that only the cleverest could hope to hold his own against.
Moreover, he did not fight alone. Fighting with him, and for him, was
his own army of near a hundred thousand spies, and besides these was
the million of the standing army, and all the vast civil machinery of
the State. Drexel drew a long breath.
The prince’s mansion sat in a great park of snow-drooped evergreens.
It was a big, box-like, sprawling pile, as are most of the older
country seats of the Russian nobility, but the plainness of its
exterior prepared a surprise for him who entered for the first time.
The furnishings were rich and quiet in their tone; the walls of the
main rooms were hung with paintings, studies, etchings, chiefly works
from the hands of the big Frenchmen of the nineteenth century; and
everywhere were exquisite little bronzes, the best private collection
in Russia. Berloff, so said his friends, could have been an eminent
artist himself, had birth not destined him to greater things.
Drexel’s eyes were ever covertly watching Sonya--thrilled with the
sense that he alone of all here knew the double part she played. Sonya
at once became the dominant figure of the party. She did not seek
attention, rather she seemed to disdain it; but, nevertheless, it
focussed upon her, and with a magnificent indifference she accepted it
as her due.
In the evening, when they were all in the music room, the countess
surprised one of Drexel’s surreptitious glances at Sonya. “You seem to
think with the rest of the men, that there is only one woman present,
the princess,” she whispered.
“I had heard so much of her that I was curious,” Drexel returned.
“Allow the elderly widow to tell you that attention paid the princess
is attention wasted. She will smile on nothing less than royal blood.
Since we left Petersburg she has given you one casual glance and two
casual words. Are my statistics correct?”
“They agree with my own.”
Her voice sank to a bare whisper. “And of course you know she has no
sympathy with our movement to gain freedom. She believes in the divine
rights of the high-born--that they are superior and should rule and
have the earth, and that the many should be their footstool.”
He saw it was her wish to draw him into some retired corner and
continue the conversation of the train; but this was not permitted
her, for just then the debonair young lieutenant of the Czar’s Guards
who had been tripping airily among the perfumed heights of tenor arias
from the Italian opera, left the piano, and there arose a demand that
she should sing. In rebuke to these sweet soulless intricacies, so
it seemed to Drexel, she sang several of the folk songs of little
Russia--simple, plaintive airs that were the voice of the people’s
heart speaking its joys and woes and aspirations--and sang them in a
rich and soft contralto charged with feeling.
Drexel, stirred by her voice, felt his heart pulsing in warm sympathy
with the beat of the song. The applauding guests thought she was moved
by mere artistic sentiment. He knew better, and when he had a moment
alone with her after she had finished, he told her how truly splendid
had been her singing. She caught the sympathy in his voice and flashed
at him a quick, bright look. “We’ll have you yet!” she whispered.
Prince Berloff, coming up, reminded her that he had promised to show
her some new etchings that he had shown the other guests in the
afternoon while she had been lying down, and he led her off to the
library.
Could Drexel have only followed her!
The countess bestowed herself in a corner of a great leather divan,
leaning back in luxurious grace, her cheek in one finely modeled hand.
The prince closed the door and drew up a chair in front of her. There
was controlled eagerness in his pale face.
“Well?” he asked in his low voice.
Triumph gleamed through the fringe of her half-closed eyes, but her
manner was languorously reposeful.
“Well, I think we have him!”
“A-a-h!” breathed the prince. “You have definitely involved him in some
plan?”
“Not yet. I’m leading him gently toward one. But he’s ready. He said as
much to-night.”
“Good! And what plan?”
“I thought the one we knew was uppermost in the revolutionists’ minds
would be the best--the freeing of Borodin.”
“You must use haste. Drexel is to be in Russia less than two weeks
longer. When are you going to lead him definitely into the thing?”
“That depends,” she answered.
“On what?”
“On you.”
“On me?”
“On the reply you make to a pair of requests.”
“And what are they?”
“When you arranged with me to undertake this matter, you merely ordered
me to lead Mr. Drexel into some revolutionary plot. You did not tell me
why you wanted him to be involved in a plot, and I did not ask. But I
ask now.”
The prince’s white brows drew together. “Countess, you are going too
far!”
But the menace of his looks did not even ripple the countess’s repose.
“Then you refuse?”
“Most emphatically!”
“Well, anyhow, this first request was of minor importance,” she said
easily. “And besides, for that matter, I know my question’s answer.”
He gave a slight start, then his face was again a cold mask.
“Indeed,” he said calmly. “How?”
“Oh, I could not help doing a little thinking--guessing--putting this
and that together.”
“And my purpose?”
“To get Mr. Drexel out of the way.”
“Well?”
“And get him out of the way so that no suspicion or blame could attach
to you,” she went on. “Get him involved in some revolutionary plot you
were watching, have the gendarmes break in upon the plotters and kill
Mr. Drexel in the struggle, or have him immediately executed with the
others before his identity should be learned. Then when his fate became
known, the Government would be very sorry--but really, you know, no one
would be to blame but Mr. Drexel’s own rashness. And you could be very
sympathetic with his family, and they would never guess that you were
the man behind it. Very safe, prince--and very, very clever!”
The prince’s face was still a cold, impenetrable mask.
“Am I not right?”
“I do not choose to discuss my purpose,” he said.
Her head slowly nodded. “Oh, I am right!” She gazed into his face
with keen, analyzing thought. “They say Richard the Third of England
murdered cousins, uncles, all sorts of relatives, to get to the throne.
Our own Catherine the Great had her husband, Czar Paul, killed that
she might become ruler of Russia. You have a family likeness to them,
prince. I should not care to stand between you and anything you desire.”
“I have not noticed any particular strain of tenderness in the Countess
Baronova,” he returned dryly. “You spoke of a second request.”
“Yes. The important one. If I am to go ahead, you must pay me more.”
“Pay you more! I have offered you ten thousand rubles for this above
your regular salary!”
“I know. I must have fifty thousand.”
“Fifty thousand! Never!”
“You are in earnest?” she asked quietly.
“Of course! I have thousands of persons who will do this for what I
offered you--or a tenth the sum.”
“But do it as well? Anyone else who could draw him into a revolutionary
plot--so that it will be safe for you--so that the blame will all be on
him? Eh, prince?”
“Your demand is absurd!” he said.
“Then I will go no further with Mr. Drexel. You and I are through with
this matter, I suppose. Well, I’m quite as well pleased with your
refusal.” She started to rise. “Let us return to the others.”
“Wait, sit down,” he said sharply. She did so. “Tell me why you are
just as well pleased with my refusal?”
“Perhaps,” said she calmly, “it may be in my mind that by breaking with
you I may get something I prefer above your fifty thousand.”
“And that?”
“I do not choose to discuss my purpose,” she said, mimicking his cold
sentence of a moment before.
At this “checkmate” he bit the inner edge of his thin lip.
“Oh, I’d just as soon tell you,” she went on. “The fact is, I’m getting
tired of my work. Not tired of the pleasure of society, nor tired of my
particular friends, the young officers who come to St. Petersburg to
spend their furloughs. But tired of having it whispered about secretly
that I have liberal views, and thereby drawing to me the officers who
hold revolutionary opinions. Tired of sympathetically leading them on,
little by little, to confide in me. Tired of telling you, and having
them disappear--poor fellows!”
“Um. What would have been the position of the widow of the bankrupt
Count Baronoff but for this salary?”
“I have needed the money, yes. But now, I’m tired. Besides, if I’m
found out, or if a few wrinkles come, my usefulness to you is over and
the salary stops. I’ve been doing a little serious thinking, and here’s
what I’ve decided. If I have so infatuated Mr. Drexel that I can lead
him into a plot that will make him your victim, why should I not----”
She stopped, and her eyes gleamed tantalizingly at the prince.
“Well?”
“Well, instead of that, why should I not make myself your cousin?”
“You mean marry him?”
“He’s rich--has a big career before him--and I rather like him. Why
not?”
“Why not?” cried the prince in a low, harsh voice, leaning towards her.
“Because I will not have my plans interfered with! Because I will not
have you for a relative!”
“Thanks for the compliment, prince,” she said dryly. “But how will you
prevent it?”
“By telling him what you are--the cleverest, keenest, most heartless
woman spy in Russia!”
“Perhaps I also might tell something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I might tell Miss Howard who you are--the ruthless, secret----”
He rose and stood above her, his eyes glittering.
“Be careful, countess,” he said slowly, ominously. “You yourself have
said that I would hesitate at nothing. Well, be warned by your own
words!”
Her daring had carried her too far. She knew this man, and knew that
if he but willed it she would mysteriously disappear never to be seen
again. Her face kept its calm, but inwardly she could but flinch before
the dark menace of his look.
After a moment, she spoke again.
“I think we will both go farther, prince, if we go together and in
harmony. Come, which is it to be--fifty thousand--or am I to withdraw
from the affair?”
Berloff did not answer at once; then he said:
“Fifty thousand.”
“So be it,” said she.
“But you must finish this at once.”
“I’ll claim the money within three days.” She rose and took his arm.
“Come, let us go back to the others.”
Two minutes later she was again with Drexel, trying with look and
veiled words to win his sympathy for her cause.