“Yes!” grunted Steinmetz; “and only the right sort of woman.”
Paul looked up sharply.
“You must leave that to me,” he said.
“My very dear friend, I leave everything to you.”
Paul smiled.
There was no positive proof that this was not strictly true. There was no saying that Karl Steinmetz did not leave everything to everybody. But wise people thought differently.
“You don’t know Etta,” he said, half shyly. “She is full of sympathy and pity for these people.”
Steinmetz bowed gravely.
“I have no doubt of it.”
“And yet you say that she must not be told.”
“Certainly not. A secret is considerably strained if it be divided between two people. Stretching it to three will probably break it. You can tell her when you are married. Does she consent to live in Osterno?”
“Oh, yes. I think so.”
“Um—m!”
“What did you say?”
“Um—m,” repeated Steinmetz, and the conversation somewhat naturally showed signs of collapse.
At this moment the door was opened, and a servant in bright livery, with powdered wig, silk stockings, and a countenance which might have been of wood, brought in a letter on a silver tray.
Paul took the square envelope and turned it over, displaying as he did so a coronet in black and gold on the corner, like a stamp.
Karl Steinmetz saw the coronet. He never took his quiet, unobtrusive glance from Paul’s face while he opened the letter and read it.
“A fresh difficulty,” said Paul, throwing the note across to his companion.
Steinmetz looked grave while he unfolded the thick stationery.
Dear Paul [the letter ran]: I hear you are at Osterno and that the Moscow doctor is in your country. We are in great distress at Thors—cholera, I fear. The fame of your doctor has spread to my people, and they are clamoring for him. Can you bring or send him over? You know your room here is always in readiness. Come soon with the great doctor, and also Herr Steinmetz. In doing so you will give more than pleasure to your old friend,
Steinmetz folded the letter very carefully, pressing the seam of it reflectively with his stout forefinger and thumb.
“I always think of the lie first,” he said. “It’s my nature or my misfortune. We can easily write and say that the Moscow doctor has left.”
He paused, scratching his brow pensively with his curved forefinger. It is to be feared that he was seeking not so much the truth as the most convenient perversion of the same.
“But then,” he went on, “by doing that we leave these poor devils to die in their—styes. Catrina cannot manage them. They are worse than our people.”
“Whatever is the best lie to tell,” burst in Paul—“as we seem to live in an atmosphere of them—I must go to Thors; that is quite certain.”
“There is no must in the case,” put in Steinmetz quietly, as a parenthesis. “No man is compelled to throw himself in the way of infection. But I know you will go, whatever I say.”
“I suppose I shall,” admitted Paul.
“And Catrina will find you out at once.”
“Why?”
Steinmetz drew in his feet. He leant forward and knocked his pipe on one of the logs that lay ready to light in the great open fireplace.
“Because she loves you,” he said shortly. “There is no coming the Moscow doctor over her, mein lieber.”
Paul laughed rather awkwardly. He was one of the few men—daily growing fewer—who hold that a woman’s love is not a thing to be tossed lightly about in conversation.
“Then—” he began, speaking rather quickly, as if afraid that Steinmetz was going to say more. “If,” he amended, “you think she will find out, she must not see me, that is all.”
Steinmetz reflected again. He was unusually grave over this matter. One would scarcely have taken this stout German for a person of any sentiment whatever. Nevertheless he would have liked Paul to marry Catrina Lanovitch in preference to Etta Sydney Bamborough, merely because he thought that the former loved him, while he felt sure that the latter did not. So much for the sentimental point of view—a starting-point, by the way, which usually makes all the difference in a man’s life. For a man needs to be loved as much as a woman needs it. From the practical point of view, Karl Steinmetz knew too much about Etta to place entire reliance on the goodness of her motives. He keenly suspected that she was marrying Paul for his money—for the position he could give her in the world.
“We must be careful,” he said. “We must place clearly before ourselves the risks that we are running before we come to any decision. For you the risk is simply that of unofficial banishment. They can hardly send you to Siberia because you are half an Englishman; and that impertinent country has a habit of getting up and shouting when her sons are interfered with. But they can easily make Russia impossible for you. They can do you more harm than you think. They can do these poor devils of peasants of yours more harm than we can comfortably contemplate. As for me,” he paused and shrugged his great shoulders, “it means Siberia. Already I am a suspect—a persona non grata.”
“I do not see how we can refuse to help Catrina,” said Paul, in a voice which Steinmetz seemed to know, for he suddenly gave in.
“As you will,” he said.
He sat up, and, drawing a small table toward him, took up a pen reflectively. Paul watched him in silence.
When the letter was finished, Steinmetz read it aloud:
My Dear Catrina:
The Moscow doctor and your obedient servant will be (D.V.) in Thors by seven o’clock
