“Why not?” asked the man who had never known fear.
“Oh, I should be afraid. I couldn’t. I hate Russia!”
“But you don’t know it.”
“No,” answered Etta, turning away and busying herself with her long silken train. “No, of course not. Only Petersburg, I mean. But I have heard what it is. So cold and dismal and miserable. I feel the cold so horribly. I wanted to go to the Riviera this winter. I really think, Paul, you are asking me too much.”
“I am only asking a proof that you care for me.”
Etta gave a little laugh—a nervous laugh with no mirth in it.
“A proof! But that is so bourgeois and unnecessary. Haven’t you proof enough, since I am your wife?”
Paul looked at her without any sign of yielding. His attitude, his whole being, was expressive of that immovability of purpose which had hitherto been concealed from her by his quiet manner. Steinmetz knew of the mental barrier within this Anglo-Russian soul, against which prayer and argument were alike unavailing. The German had run against it once or twice in the course of their joint labors, and had invariably given way at once.
Etta looked at him. The color was coming back to her face in patches. There was something unsteady in her eyes—something suggesting that for the first time in her life she was daunted by a man. It was not Paul’s speech, but his silence that alarmed her. She felt that trivial arguments, small feminine reasons, were without weight.
“Now that you are married,” she said, “I do not think you have any right to risk your life and your position for a fad.”
“I have done it with impunity for the last two or three years,” he answered. “With ordinary precautions the risk is small. I have begun the thing now; I must go on with it.”
“But the country is not safe for us—for you.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” answered Paul. “As safe as ever it has been.”
Etta paused. She turned round and looked into the fire. He could not see her face.
“Then the Ch—Charity League is forgotten?” she said.
“No,” answered her husband quietly. “It will not be forgotten until we have found out who sold us to the Government.”
Etta’s lips moved in a singular way. She drew them in and held them with her teeth. For a moment her beautiful face wore a hunted expression of fear.
“What will you gain by that?” she asked evenly.
“I? Oh, nothing. I do not care one way or the other. But there are some people who want the man—very much.”
Etta drew in a long, deep breath.
“I will go to Osterno with you, if you like,” she said. “Only—only I must have Maggie with me.”
“Yes, if you like,” answered Paul, in some surprise.
The clock struck ten, and Etta’s eyes recovered their brightness. Womanlike, she lived for the present. The responsibility of the future is essentially a man’s affair. The present contained a ball, and it was only in the future that Osterno and Russia had to be faced. Let us also give Etta Alexis her due. She was almost fearless. It is permissible to the bravest to be startled. She was now quite collected. The even, delicate color had returned to her face.
“Maggie is such a splendid companion,” she said lightly. “She is so easy to please. I think she would come if you asked her, Paul.”
“If you want her, I shall ask her, of course; but it may hinder us a little. I thought you might be able to help us—with the women, you know.”
There was a queer little smile on Etta’s face—a smile, one might have thought, of contempt.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “It is so nice to be able to do good with one’s money.”
Paul looked at her in his slow, grave way, but he said nothing. He knew that his wife was cleverer and brighter than himself. He was simple enough to think that this superiority of intellect might be devoted to the good of the peasants of Osterno.
“It is not a bad place,” he said—“a very fine castle, one of the finest in Europe. Before I came away I gave orders for your rooms to be done up. I should like everything to be nice for you.”
“I know you would, dear,” she answered, glancing at the clock. (The carriage was ordered for a quarter-past ten.) “But I suppose,” she went on, “that, socially speaking, we shall be rather isolated. Our neighbors are few and far between.”
“The nearest,” said Paul quietly, “are the Lanovitches.”
“Who?”
“The Lanovitches. Do you know them?”
“Of course not,” answered Etta sharply. “But I seem to know the name. Were there any in St. Petersburg?”
“The same people,” answered Paul; “Count Stépan Lanovitch.”
Etta was looking at her husband with her bright smile. It was a little too bright, perhaps. Her eyes had a gleam in them. She was conscious of being beautifully dressed, conscious of her own matchless beauty, almost dauntless, like a very strong man armed.
“Well, I think I am a model wife,” she said: “to give in meekly to your tyranny; to go and bury myself in the heart of Russia in the middle of winter—By the way, we must buy some furs; that will be rather exciting. But you must not expect me to be very intimate with your Russian friends. I am not quite sure that I like Russians”—she went toward him, laying her two hands gently on his broad breast and looking up at him—“not quite sure—especially Russian princes who bully their wives. You may kiss me, however, but be very careful. Now I must go and finish dressing. We shall be late as it is.”
She gathered together her fan and gloves, for she had petulantly dragged off a pair which did not fit.
“And you will ask Maggie to come with us?” she said.
He held open the door for her to
