As I hurried out from Drexel, intending to try and find means to render
myself more presentable by getting rid of some of my grime, I found
Helga waiting for me.
“I am all mud,” I said apologetically.
“I am all impatience, and that is worse,” she returned.
“Let me get rid of some of this;” and I spread out my hands and glanced
down at my clothes, and looked up to find her smiling. “You can’t tell
how glad I am to see that,” I added.
“You will see no smiles if you keep me waiting. I will forgive the dirt
if you will only tell me.”
“I could tell you more comfortably if we were _en route_ for the
frontier.”
“Perhaps we shall be soon. Come,” and she led me into a room, all dirty
as I was.
“Disaster is easy to tell. Prince Kalkov knows everything about your
plans, your name, your real part in Boreski’s business, your fight
against him--everything;” and as shortly as I could I told her all I
knew and had learnt from the Prince.
She listened with scarcely an interruption, and when I finished sat
thinking with pursed lips and gathered brows.
“It was very clever and very devilish,” she said. “And for the time it
means failure. You are right. I must fly, and that to-night.”
“I am glad you see that.”
“I have had to do it before--for a time. But I shall, of course, come
back. I am not beaten. Flight is only one of the tactics in the fight
I am waging. I shall never cease to fight until I win or they kill me.
But he has beaten me for the time, and now that he knows my motive, he
will be harder to fight than ever.”
“It is I who have ruined you by betraying this place through my stupid
blundering.”
“Ah, I had not thought of that,” she said, turning and smiling to me.
“You will have suffered. It was a mistake, but it would have made no
difference in the end. With the new clues which the Duchess Stephanie
and this Drexel could give him, the Prince would have found me here. I
should not have waited for him indeed, so that by warning me now you
have more than made good the mistake.”
“Do you think Boreski has told him anything?”
“No, not Boreski; I am sure of him. It is Drexel. A man when he is
afraid for his life is a contemptible creature. But it is his nature,”
she said scornfully. “I knew it and knew him. I used him as a tool, and
when a tool breaks in your hand, you are fortunate if you are not hurt.”
“The sooner we start the better.” But she was thinking and appeared not
to hear me.
“I shall have to begin again,” she said, with quiet resolution. “It is
no new experience. I have had to do it two or three times before. My
next attempt shall be better planned. Each time I do better--learning
from my failures. Next time I shall win.”
“When shall we start?” I asked, as she paused.
“We? If you are wise and take my advice, you will go to your
Ambassador, tell him frankly all that has occurred, and get his help.”
“And if I am not wise?” I sought her eyes and we both smiled, and she
sighed.
“No, no, you must not.”
“You know that I shall, Helga. Let us be frank.”
“You wish me to be frank?” and she looked up calmly.
“Why not?”
“Then I would rather you did not attempt to accompany me.”
“Do you mean to leave me in the lurch?”
“Don’t,” she cried, with a little wince of pain.
“I didn’t mean that--but you know what I do mean.”
“You know nothing can come of it.”
“Call it nothing or something, it is just all in all to me.”
“Please!” she said, almost pleadingly.
“I will have no mercy when you speak of parting.”
“But I mean it. You must not come with me. I am stronger alone.”
“Why?”
“You can be very stupid--when you wish,” she cried, with another smile.
“Why?” I repeated. “Why stronger alone?”
“Because--ah, you know.”
“May I not wish to hear you say it?”
She looked up steadily, and said in a quiet, firm tone--
“Because when you are with me I weaken in my purpose.”
“That is just my object. I hope to win you from it altogether.”
“It is impossible. You must not go with me.”
“You wish never to see me again?”
“How cruel you can be!” Then defiantly, “Yes, I do wish it.”
“Very well,” I cried decidedly, as I rose. “Then I will go.” I paused,
and she started and gave me a glance in which surprise and pain were
blended. I went to the door, and turning, saw she had paled slightly. I
waited for her to speak.
“I--I am glad.” The tone was very low, and her lips faltered.
“Yes, I have put up with it long enough. I can bear it no longer.”
A quick questioning, half-indignant light was in her eyes as she rose.
“You can bear it no longer. I am sorry----”
A laugh from me checked the words on her lips.
“I have never been so dirty in my life. I _must_ wash.”
She turned away with a toss of the head.
“You treat it as a jest--at such a time.”
“When I am earnest you won’t take me seriously--you won’t take me at
all! indeed, it seems. But in any case you can’t travel with a man who
looks like a tramp. I am going, as I was saying, to try and get clean
again.”
She turned then, and there was neither pain nor surprise on her face,
only relief and intense gladness.
“I thought you were in earnest.” It was only a smiling reproach.
“I am always in earnest where you are concerned.” I took a step or two
towards her. “And you are glad?”
“I am ashamed of my weakness.”
“A weakness of which such a smile as that is a fitting confession.”
“I hate myself for being weak at all,” she cried in protest.
“It would be worse if you hated the cause of it. But now it is my turn
to be weak, and to lean on you. I have no clothes to travel in.”
“We can help you there. We have many disguises here.”
“A travelling coat is all I need, and an idea of how we are to leave.”
“I have always found the simplest is the best. If you are right about
the Prince, he will have given no orders for either you or myself to be
watched, and the railway will be open. The mail leaves at ten o’clock;
open to tourists of all nations.”
“And the frontier difficulties?”
She laughed.
“The Russian officials are the stupidest on earth. We shall, of course,
have passports, and our papers being in order, all will be simple. A
passport can be a very valuable friend, and those who need them always
take care they are in order.”
“I brought mine with me.”
“Then you reckoned on my going?” she asked, smiling. “You count upon
your influence with me, it seems.”
“But Kalkov may communicate with the frontier folk?”
“How should he know and why? He has, no doubt, spies who are able to
convey information to the brotherhood; but do you think they would
return the favour? He will think they may be trusted to do as he wished
to us, and when he hears of the failure we shall be beyond his reach.”
It was an ingenious thought and probably correct.
“Good,” I said. “You see how you help me. We are stronger together. We
will get ready.”
I went first in search of Ivan, and heard from him that our plan had
succeeded entirely, and that the men who had come in quest of Helga had
all been secured.
With his assistance I soon got rid of the traces of the evening’s work,
and when I saw Helga again she was ready for the start.
“About Madame Korvata?” I asked, suddenly remembering her.
“She has gone to the station for our tickets. She went long ago, before
you spoke to me and while you were with Drexel.”
I looked at her and smiled.
“Then you had made up your mind before--before what you said to me?”
She flushed slightly and her eyes brightened.
“I--I foresaw what I should probably have to do,” she answered, and
laughed softly. “You see, I knew I must go.”
“And that I should not let you go alone. I did not see, but I do now.”
“It is time to start, I think;” and she turned away.
Helga had indeed concluded all the arrangements, thinking of every
detail with all a woman’s eye for small things. Madame Korvata was not
to travel with us, but to follow later. Ivan was to remain and see to
the difficulties in regard to the presence of the men in the house, and
then go into hiding until he heard from Helga.
The whole affair was just cut and dried, as though a flight from the
police were an ordinary incident of life.
I felt abominably nervous, I admit; disposed to look for spies and
police at every turn. But Helga was as cool as if we had been in the
States, and were running up from New York to Saratoga for a few days’
change of air.
“There is only one point of possible danger yet--the police may have a
spy somewhere near at hand. I doubt it, because the Prince will rely
upon Drexel, and knows that if his spy were seen, the plot against us
would fail. But I have taken care. There is a house in the square here
where the people are constant travellers. Our carriage is there, and we
shall leave here unobserved, and pretend to come out of that house.”
“Is such a thing likely to trick them?”
“You smile; but it is just these little simple acted lies which make
all the difference. Spies are trained to believe what they see; no
more.”
We did as Helga had said, and whether or not we were seen I cannot
say; but I saw no one, and we found not the least difficulty with the
railway officials, who were indeed exceedingly courteous to the young
handsome French widow, Madame de Courvaix, the name conspicuously
written upon Helga’s luggage.
The cars were well filled, and we were not alone in our compartment,
so that I thought we had better speak very little. But that was not
Helga’s intention. She gave me a very meaning look, with a glance
toward our fellow-passengers, and began to chatter at once, with all
the vivacity of a Parisian.
“I am glad they did not come to see us off,” she said, as soon as the
train started. “Train good-byes are so inane.”
“Sometimes they are.”
“Yet I think the General should have come, and young Lablache from
the Embassy. He promised me. A ball-room promise, of course;” and she
laughed merrily and threw her hands up.
“Lablache? Do I know him?”
“Know him? Not by name. He is that dark handsome man who was so nice
about the flowers, and at whom somebody I know, a stupid, jealous
somebody, looked daggers;” and she made a pretty grimace at me.
“Oh, that fellow!” I growled.
“He is coming to Paris next month, and has promised to call;” and then
we plunged into a conversation about a wholly imaginary set of people,
in the course of which Helga managed most adroitly to include a purely
fictional history of herself, with side-lights upon our relationship
as an engaged couple.
Having done that, she settled herself in her corner, said she was going
to sleep, and advised me to do the same; and as I was putting the rugs
about her, she managed to whisper a sentence which gave me food for
thought all through the night.
“The woman’s a spy. Be careful.”
As she said it she laughed gaily, and in a few minutes closed her eyes
and appeared to sleep soundly.
But there was no sleep for me. I forced myself to keep my eyes closed,
a continuous effort that was infinitely taxing; and during the long,
weary hours, I think I must have pretty well exhausted in thought
all the possible dangers that might result from the presence of so
dangerous a fellow-traveller.
Helga was more than equal to the emergency, however. In the early hours
of dawn she woke, or pretended to awake, cross and fretful, and roused
me.
“How soundly you sleep,” she said crossly. “How can you in this
abominable stuffy atmosphere? Let the window down, please.”
“I think it’s very chilly,” I said, not understanding her.
“Am I nobody?” she cried, with a stamp of the foot and a shrug of the
shoulders. “Shall I do it myself?”
I put it down a little way.
“Wide open, I mean,” she said angrily.
“It’s very cold,” I protested; and indeed the cold, keen air came
rushing in and made me put my collar up.
“Nonsense, I’m stifled. Wide open, I said. That’s better,” as I put it
right down.
Our fellow-travellers stirred, as well they might indeed, for the
temperature ran down swiftly several degrees. The man having heard
Helga’s request was too polite to interfere, and suffered in silence,
drawing his wraps closer round him.
But the woman had no such scruples, and after a while asked me pretty
sharply to close the window.
“It is open by my request, madame,” declared Helga in a very angry
tone. The woman grumbled to the man, and at her instigation he appealed
to me.
This was Helga’s opportunity, and she and the woman began an
altercation, which lasted for several miles, and was waged with such
bitterness that had they been men they would have come to blows.
Helga’s fluency was too much for her opponent; besides, we were masters
of the situation; so that the window remained open, and we shivered in
victory.
At the first place where we stopped the quarrel began again, and the
woman appealed to the officials.
They were sorry, but could do nothing.
The conductor offered a solution, however. There was an empty coupé on
the train; would Helga remove to it? Certainly she would not. In her
beloved France people could have a window up or down as they pleased,
and she was not going to yield her privileges for all the cantankerous
old women in Russia put together.
This settled it, and with many a parting shot at France and Frenchwomen
in general, and Helga in particular, the two got out and followed the
conductor to the other carriage.
As soon as we were out of the station Helga, who had kept up her show
of vociferous and gesticulating anger, laughed.
“Do put the window up, please. I’m nearly frozen to death. I hope I
haven’t given you a cold.”
I closed the window and laughed.
“I thought you were in earnest at first,” I said.
“Thank you; but I am not quite such a crochetty, ill-tempered
individual, even after a sleepless night of doubt in a railway
carriage.”
“Sleepless?”
“I was planning that little coup all the time, of course. She suspects
nothing, or she would have frozen to death before she had left the
carriage. She is new to her work, so I could take a risk.”
“You are a wonderful actress.”
“I have had a long training, and life and liberty are bigger incentives
than any salary,” she answered thoughtfully. “Now we can sleep safely
for two hours, and then we stop for breakfast.”
When we reached the station she said she would not leave the carriage,
so I fetched her some, and after I had had mine, I strolled up and
down, smoking.
Presently she called me.
“Something has happened, and whatever it is, the officials are uneasy
and excited. Go and hear what those two are talking about;” and she
pointed to a couple of men, one of whom held a despatch in his hand,
which both were discussing eagerly.
I strolled over to them and caught my breath quickly as I heard one of
them say something about Nihilists and supposed flight.
I went up to them and put a casual question about our train being late,
intending to follow it up with others, when some one exclaimed in
English:
“Just like my infernal luck!” Recognizing the voice, I turned, and the
speaker clapped me on the shoulder and then seized my hand.
“What, Harper, old fellow! What on earth brings you here?” It was an
old Harvard chum, Frank Siegel.
The two officials glanced at us, and moved off as we shook hands.
“Rather; what are you doing?”
“I? Oh, I’m out for the Frisco Eagle--the Screecher. I’ve been round
the world for them. Trotting home, and, like my infernal luck, I’ve
just missed a scoop in Petersburg.”
“What is it?”
“What is it? By gee, it’s just what I’d have given my ears to get. A
big Nihilist raid. No end of arrests; but the biggest birds are flown.
May be on this very train.”
“I heard nothing of it, and I came from Petersburg.”
“Are we on the same train? My, that’s bully. Say, I’ll get my traps and
join you.”
“I’m not alone, Frank.”
“Don’t you worry about that; I shan’t mind your friends. I’m used to
all sorts of mixed company;” and with a grin at this gibe he ran off.
I went back to Helga and told her what I had heard.
“Can you trust your friend?” she asked, after a short pause.
“Oh yes, as myself.”
“Then let him come.”
“And you?”
“I have already had to explain our relationship once!” she answered,
with a glance.
“But if I tell him we’re engaged----” I paused.
“Well?” with a challenging smile.
“It will have to be in earnest.”
“Well?”
“Then the sooner he comes the better,” I said.
“We must know the news, even if we make concessions to learn it.”
“I guess my news will surprise him as much as his will us.”
And we were both laughing happily, despite the ominous turn in things,
when Siegel came running up and bundled his wraps into the carriage, as
I introduced him to Helga.