Helga met my eyes readily with something like a challenge in her own,
and as the first question was on my lips, a thought struck me. It was
odd that coming to such an interview he had not brought the papers with
him. I said so to her.
For answer she just looked at me and smiled. If she did not know the
disarming power of her smile I felt it.
“You like to mystify me,” I said.
“Why were you so hard on poor M. Boreski, and why”--she paused as if
to calculate the effect of her words--“why do you suspect us of being
Nihilists?”
“You? I did not say anything about you. It was M. Boreski.”
“Is that quite candid, M. American?” It was an audacious stroke,
considering whom she believed me to be.
“Your assurance would suffice to convince me.”
“You put your sharp questions in flattering covers, monsieur. But your
compliments have barbed points.”
“Is it a barbed point that I would trust your word implicitly?”
“If I thought that, oh, if I _could_ think it,” she exclaimed with
great earnestness, clasping her hands strenuously.
“Why should you doubt it?”
She turned full upon me.
“Because you do not know me; because----” she broke off and then said
steadily, almost defiantly: “I am no Nihilist, nor is M. Boreski.”
“And he has had no dealings with them?” I felt convinced that he had.
“I mean to your knowledge?”
“You cross-examine like a lawyer.” A flash of scorn was in her eyes as
she looked at me angrily. “If we have had what you term dealings with
them, it was because it was necessary, and no other way was left to me.”
“You are not afraid to handle edged tools, and I am sorry to hear what
you say.”
“I am not afraid of anything that can help my purpose.”
“I never heard of Nihilism helping anything or anybody.”
“I choose my own means, and go my own way,” she said defiantly.
“I can believe that; but I am not accusing you, nor need you defend
yourself--to me. I believe that whatever you have done, you have been
driven to do, and have believed yourself justified in doing--for this
great purpose you speak of. But others may think very differently.”
“You do not ask what it is. You do not care, I suppose. Yet----” There
was pain now in her voice, and a sigh finished the broken sentence.
“It is better that I should not ask,” I said after a pause. She had
made me forget for the moment, in my solicitude for her, that I must
not have her confidence. “When will M. Boreski return?”
“My purpose is revenge,” she cried with sudden vehemence, her face
suddenly set and stern and her eyes bright. “Revenge for a cruel,
cowardly crime, and wrongs as deep and bitter as ever weighed a woman
to the earth and filled her heart with burning rage.”
“I beg you, mademoiselle, to say no more,” I protested.
“But I wish to tell you. I must, I must. It concerns the pampered
villain who holds your confidence, Prince Kalkov, and”--she paused
and looked at me, her face fevered with excitement and her eyes full
of dread doubt, and then added in a low strenuous tone--“Prince Boris
Lavalski.”
I had never heard the name, of course, and could not understand her
intense agitation. She searched my face as if hungry for some sign of
recognition, and seeing none, her own clouded and then paled.
“Prince Boris Lavalski,” I echoed.
“Oh, my God, my God, that it has come to this!” she cried in a passion
of despair; and she hid her face in her hands, giving way to such
uncontrollable emotion that my heart was wrung for her.
She remained some minutes in the stress of her whirlwind grief; most
embarrassing minutes to me, for I knew not what to do or say, gladly as
I would have said or done anything to soften her distress.
Suddenly she mastered her emotion, rose and faced me, her face worn,
strained, and white to the very lips, which quivered.
“So be it, monsieur. You are still his enemy--and mine,” she said in
low measured tones. “Still the defender of that cruel monstrous infamy.
We are then to fight on.”
“I am utterly at a loss to understand you, mademoiselle. God knows I am
no enemy of yours, and would only too gladly be your friend if----”
“That is impossible, monsieur,” she interposed angrily, with the air of
an empress. “Shall M. Boreski return?”
“I have been waiting for him,” said I, still mystified.
“I sent him away that I might speak to you of this.” She touched the
bell as she spoke, and I noticed that she pushed it twice.
“I did not know that you were his principal,” I said.
“There are many things you do not know yet: as many indeed as you seem
quite unwilling to remember, or anxious to forget.” She was very bitter.
“I assure you----”
“Is it necessary, monsieur?” she asked contemptuously, making one feel
about as mean as a man could feel.
Until M. Boreski came in we said no more, and as he entered he shot a
swift questioning glance at Helga.
“His Majesty is anxious to conclude the interview, M. Boreski.”
He seemed to take his cue from her words and hostile manner.
It was clear that a considerable change was at hand, and I awaited the
unfolding of it with interest.
Boreski treated me with the same deference as before, and having asked
my permission, resumed his seat and produced the papers.
“The papers for the Emperor are here,” he said.
“Give them me;” and I held out my hand for them.
But this he would not.
“With extreme deference I submit that I be allowed first to examine
those which you bring, monsieur. If the request should appear strange,
I beg you to remember that Prince Kalkov has already once broken faith
with me this evening.”
“You are cautious, Count Boreski.” He started and flushed with pleasure
as I thus addressed him by his new title. “But why should I trust them
to you? If it comes to faith-breaking, are not those documents stolen?
Surely there is a breach of more than faith behind your possession of
them. Why then should I trust you?”
“I fear then we have reached an _impasse_,” he said, with a courteous
bow as he spread out his hands.
“Not a bit of it. Hand yours to Mademoiselle Helga.” I turned to her.
“You will hold them, mademoiselle, and give them to me when this
cautious gentleman has satisfied himself that these are in order?”
“With your permission, the matter is no concern of mine,” she replied
coldly.
“It seems to me that you are both anxious to raise difficulties.”
Helga shrugged her shoulders, and Boreski spread out his hands
deprecatingly.
“With all deference, I submit I am not asking too much to be allowed to
examine documents of such vital importance to me.”
I thought for a moment. If I parted with the papers and did not get the
others in exchange I should be pretty considerably euchred; but on the
other hand his request was not unreasonable. Then I saw the way out. I
remembered that I was armed.
“Very well. You can see them,” and I pushed them across to him, and
rising, stood between him and the door.
“Your confidence in our honour is very striking, monsieur,” said Helga
scornfully.
“Is that fair? I offered to trust them to you, and you replied it
was no concern of yours. I am now dealing with the holder of stolen
documents.”
“And you judge M. Boreski by the standard of the persons who surround
and advise you continually. No doubt you are right according to your
experience,” was her bitterly spoken retort.
“Your anger and injustice are too manifest to need a further reply from
me, mademoiselle,” I returned.
Boreski scrutinized the papers carefully, and presently I saw him start
and lay one aside. I wondered if he could have discovered any forgery
among them.
“There is one grave point here, and one of less importance,” he said at
length; and putting the papers together he handed them back to me, with
the draft for the money on the top. “This draft is dated three days
hence.”
I took them and went back to my seat.
“The reason is obvious. This is in the nature of a dowry, and as such
will be paid on your marriage, and not before it.”
“With all submission, I cannot so regard it, and I cannot accept the
draft as complying with the agreement.”
It was just the hitch I had foreseen and pointed out to old Kalkov; but
how to get over it I did not see.
“And the point of minor importance; what is that?”
“The consent to the marriage is dated, and if a date is to remain, it
should be that of a week or a month ago.”
“Why?”
At the quick question he looked across at Helga, who shrugged her
shoulders.
“I do not see why you should not say. It concerns both the objections
and accounts for them,” she said.
“The Duchess Stephanie is already my wife, monsieur,” said Boreski.
“The devil she is,” I exclaimed in genuine astonishment. “That puts the
whole thing on a totally different footing.”
“It entails the consent being dated back, and makes the dowry payable
at once, monsieur.”
“It means also that you have put your head in a noose, and have
forfeited the Duchess’s fortune, since her marriage has taken place
without my--without the Emperor’s consent;” and I folded up the papers
and put them back in my pocket.
“It certainly produces a quite interesting complication,” said Helga,
smiling.
“It does not affect the gravity of the papers I hold here,” and Boreski
tapped them slowly with his long white fingers.
For the life of me I couldn’t see a way out of the maze. Had I been
really the Emperor, I might have done it by sending instructions to old
Kalkov to pay the million roubles; then by writing a fresh consent to
the marriage I could have secured the papers, and so have made an end
of the thing.
But I felt that Kalkov would only laugh at such a request from me,
while of course I could not write a single word without the discrepancy
of the handwriting being at once apparent.
I was loth to go back and admit my failure; but this I saw at length
was the only resource. Every moment that I hesitated made the affair
worse, so I put as bold a front on matters as I could and got up.
“This new admission of yours, M. Boreski,” I said with an assumption of
dignity, “is so serious as to require consideration. Be good enough to
have a carriage brought for me at once. The interview is at an end.”
He had risen with me and stood in indecision, when Helga interposed and
took the lead in her own hands.
“You do not quite understand the position, I fear, monsieur,” she said
slowly.
“Do you mean I am not free to go--after your promise to me?”
“Oh no, no,” she cried, with one of her smiles. “I myself will order
your carriage.” She rang the bell, and when the servant came she told
him to order a carriage at once.
“I was sure of you, mademoiselle, and regret my hasty suspicion. You
will pardon it?”
“It was a natural inference--for one accustomed to treachery,” she
replied, with soft sarcasm. “But we really are not traitors here. The
way is open for you to leave--if you dare, monsieur?” And the challenge
was in eyes, face, voice and manner alike.
“Dare? That is a strong word, mademoiselle.”
“Intentionally strong,” she retorted, with cutting deliberation.
“Intentionally strong. I have been patient under injury, and have
endured injustice, hoping, praying, and waiting for redress; living for
the interview which I have had to-night--and had in vain. And now my
patience is exhausted, and you have drained it to the dregs. Had there
been a spark of just feeling left in your heart, a faint wan glimmer of
desire to right the wrong done to mine and to me, and to wipe out the
cruel stain of unmerited infamy, the name I mentioned to you to-night
would have kindled the desire until, fanned by the remembrance of old
and tried and dear friendship, it would have burned steadily with
a bright avenging flame.” She spoke without passion in slow level
accents.
I had not the faintest suspicion of her meaning.
“What name was that?” I asked, having even forgotten it.
The question drew a smile of contempt from her.
“I will not insult myself by repeating it.”
“The carriage is at the door, mademoiselle,” announced the servant.
“You can go, monsieur,” she said, when the man had left.
But she had startled as well as interested me, and I hesitated.
“I think you should speak more plainly. I am honest when I say I do not
understand you.”
Boreski had now passed out of consideration, and he stood back watching
us two, as if acknowledging her leadership.
“You wish for plain speaking. You shall have it, monsieur--from the
enemy you have made to-night. This is my work,” she said proudly,
pointing to the papers in Boreski’s hands. “My work, only. I sought at
first by all fair means to reach your--the Emperor’s ear, believing,
like the fool I was, that he would do me justice. But his minister was
too powerful, too vigilant, too alarmed to let my complaint reach his
ear. I knew why. God, how well I knew it! Then, and not until then,
when I had failed by open means, I had recourse to these. I joined
hands with another of Russia’s victims, M. Boreski here, and with him,
through the Duchess Stephanie, I found the means I sought. God knows
Russian duplicity gives many chances, and one of them came my way,
putting me in a position to gain by force the justice which was denied
to mere pleading.”
She paused again, but I did not speak.
“Those papers--but you know their purport well enough--mean the
exposure of Russian craft in every Court in Europe, with probably a war
with the Powers that have been tricked and fooled. They know already
that we have secret information, and we have been in negotiation with
them. But I am a Russian, too, and planned this interview, hoping that
when face to face with you I could touch the heart so long dead to the
cries of friendship. I have failed; I see that. You will not remember;
you cannot forget; even for you that would be impossible. You have
denied me justice, but I thank my God you cannot take from me all my
revenge.”
Her passion was rising fast now under the stimulus of her remembered
wrongs, and she went to the door and threw it open.
“Go, monsieur, go,” she cried, with a magnificent gesture of defiance.
“Cross the threshold in the mood you are, and as I live, those papers,
proofs as they are of your ministers’ infamous treachery, shall be in
the hands already stretched out eagerly to receive them--the hands of
Russia’s enemies. That is what I mean. Go, monsieur, go--if you dare.”
She held the door open and stared at me in indignant defiance and
challenge.
Was ever a man caught in a closer meshed net than that which held me at
that moment?
I stood fumbling with the situation in sheer and desperate perplexity.
I remembered old Kalkov’s words that the papers might plunge the
country into war, and that at any cost they must not be allowed to get
into the hands of the Powers concerned. Yet if I left the house it was
straight to those Powers they would go.
If, on the other hand, I remained, what could I do?
If I admitted to Helga that I was no Emperor, but a fraud, her anger
would probably be increased, and she would carry out her purpose just
the same. While if I went on playing at being Emperor, and listened to
her story, I could do no good. It was out of my power to grant her the
justice which she deemed had been denied. I should only be cheating her
and emphasizing the lie which my presence as Emperor constituted.
To fall back on old Kalkov and curse him for having got me into the
mess was comforting but unpractical; and I stood like a fool, probably
looking the fool I felt, as I gnawed my moustache and twisted my beard
in imbecile indecision.