“Precisely. It is that particular point which gives me trouble at the present moment. It is that that I wish to discover.”
De Chauxville looked up coolly. He saw his advantage.
“Hence your sudden flow of communicativeness?” he said.
Vassili nodded.
“You cannot find out for yourself, so you seek my help?” went on the Frenchman.
Again the Russian nodded his head.
“And your price?” said De Chauxville, drawing in his feet and leaning forward, apparently to study the pattern of the carpet. The action concealed his face. He was saving Etta, and he was ashamed of himself.
“When you have the information you may name your own price,” said the Russian coldly.
There was a long silence. Before speaking De Chauxville turned and took a glass of liqueur from the table. His hand was not quite steady. He raised the glass quickly and emptied it. Then he rose and looked at his watch. The silence was a compact.
“When the lady dined with you in Paris, did she recognize you?” he asked.
“Yes; but she did not know that I recognized her.”
For the moment they both overlooked Steinmetz.
De Chauxville stood reflecting.
“And your theory,” he said, “respecting Sydney Bamborough—what is it?”
“If he got away to Nizhniy and the Volga, it is probable that he is in Eastern Siberia or in Persia at this moment. He has not had time to get right across Asia yet.”
De Chauxville moved toward the door. With his fingers on the handle he paused again.
“I leave early tomorrow morning,” he said.
Vassili nodded, or rather he bowed, in his grand way.
Then De Chauxville went out of the room. They did not shake hands. There is sometimes shame among thieves.
XXVII
In the Web
“What I propose is that Catrina takes you for a drive, my dear baron, with her two ponies.”
The countess had taken very good care to refrain from making this proposal to Catrina alone. She was one of those mothers who rule their daughters by springing surprises upon them in a carefully selected company where the daughter is not free to reply.
De Chauxville bowed with outspread hands.
“If it will not bore mademoiselle,” he replied.
The countess looked at her daughter with an unctuous smile, as if to urge her on to make the most of this opportunity. It was one of the countess’s chief troubles that she could not by hook or crook involve Catrina in any sort of a love intrigue. She was the sort of mother who would have preferred to hear scandal about her daughter to hearing nothing.
“If it will not freeze monsieur,” replied Catrina, with uncompromising honesty.
De Chauxville laughed in his frank way.
“I am not afraid of coldness—of the atmosphere, mademoiselle,” he replied. “I am most anxious to see your beautiful country. It was quite dark during the last hour of my journey last night, and I had snow-sleepiness. I saw nothing.”
“You will see nothing but snow,” said Catrina.
“Which is like the reserve of a young girl,” added the Frenchman. “It keeps warm that which is beneath it.”
“You need not be afraid with Catrina,” chimed in the countess, nodding and becking in a manner that clearly showed her assumption to herself of some vague compliment. “She drives beautifully. She is not nervous in that way. I have never seen anyone drive like her.”
“I have no doubt,” said De Chauxville, “that mademoiselle’s hands are firm, despite their diminutiveness.”
The countess was charmed—and showed it. She frowned at Catrina, who remained grave and looked at the clock.
“When would you like to go?” she asked De Chauxville, with that complete absence of affectation which the Russian, of all women of the world, alone have mastered in their conversation with men.
“Am I not at your service—now and always?” responded the gallant baron.
“I hope not,” replied Catrina quietly. “There are occasions when I have no use for you. Shall we say eleven o’clock?”
“With pleasure. Then I will go and write my letters now,” said the baron, quitting the room.
“A charming man!” ejaculated the countess, before the door was well closed.
“A fool!” corrected Catrina.
“I do not think you can say that, dear,” sighed the countess, more in sorrow than in anger.
“A clever one,” answered Catrina. “There is a difference. The clever ones are the worst.”
The countess shrugged her shoulders hopelessly, and Catrina left the room. She went upstairs to her own little den, where the piano stood. It was the only room in the house that was not too warm, for here the window was occasionally opened—a proceeding which the countess considered scarcely short of criminal.
Catrina began to play, feverishly, nervously, with all the weird force of her nature. She was like a very sick person seeking a desperate remedy—racing against time. It was her habit to take her breaking heart thus to the great masters, to interpret their thoughts in their music, welding their melodies to the needs of her own sorrow. She only had half an hour. Of late music had failed her a little. It had not given her the comfort she had usually extracted from solitude and the piano. She was in a dangerous humor. She was afraid of trusting herself to De Chauxville. The time fled, and her humor did not change. She was still playing when the door opened, and the countess stood before her flushed and angry, either or both being the effect of stairs upon emotion.
“Catrina!” the elder lady exclaimed. “The sleigh is at the door, and the count is waiting. I cannot tell what you are thinking of. It is not everybody who would be so attentive to you. Just look at your hair. Why can’t you dress like other girls?”
“Because I am not made like other girls,” replied Catrina—and who knows what bitterness of reproach there was in such an answer from daughter to mother?
“Hush, child,” replied the countess, whose anger usually took the form of personal abuse. “You are as the good God made you.”
“Then the good God must have made me in the dark,” cried Catrina, flinging out of the room.
“She
