At length Paul moved. He turned, and, coming toward the table, laid his hand on Steinmetz’s broad shoulder.
“Are you sure of it?” he asked, in a voice that did not sound like his own at all—a hollow voice like that of an old man.
“Quite; I have it from Stépan Lanovitch—from the princess herself.”
They remained thus for a moment. Then Paul withdrew his hand and walked slowly to the window.
“Tell me,” he said, “how she did it.”
Steinmetz was playing with the quill pen again. It is singular how at great moments we perform trivial acts, think trivial thoughts. He dipped the pen in the ink, and made a pattern on the blotting-pad with dots.
“It was an organized plan between husband and wife,” he said. “Bamborough turned up at Thors and asked for a night’s lodging, on the strength of a very small acquaintance. He stole the papers from Stépan’s study and took them to Tver, where his wife was waiting for them. She took them on to Paris and sold them to Vassili. Bamborough began his journey eastward, knowing presumably that he could not escape by the western frontier, but lost his way on the steppe. You remember the man whom we picked up between here and Tver, with his face all cut to pieces?—he had been dragged by the stirrup. That was Sydney Bamborough. The good God had hit back quickly.”
“How long have you known this?” asked Paul, in a queer voice.
“I saw it suddenly in the princess’s face, one day in Petersburg—a sort of revelation. I read it there, and she saw me reading. I should have liked to keep it from you, for your sake as well as for hers. Our daily life is made possible only by the fact that we know so little of our neighbors. There are many things of which we are better ignorant right up to the end. This might have been one of them. But De Chauxville found it out, and it is better that I should tell you than he.”
Paul did not look around. The wolfhound was still barking at its own echo—a favorite pastime of those who make a great local stir in the world.
“Of course,” said Paul, after a long pause, “I have been a great fool. I know that. But—”
He turned and looked at Steinmetz with haggard eyes.
“But I would rather go on being a fool than suspect anyone of a deception like this.”
Steinmetz was still making patterns on the blotting-pad.
“It is difficult for us men,” he said slowly, “to look at these things from a woman’s point of view. They hold a different sense of honor from ours—especially if they are beautiful. And the fault is ours—especially toward the beautiful ones. There may have been temptations of which we are ignorant.”
Paul was still looking at him. Steinmetz looked up slowly, and saw that he had grown ten years older in the last few minutes. He did not look at him for more than a second, because the sight of Paul’s face hurt him. But he saw in that moment that Paul did not understand. This strong man, hard in his youthful strength of limb and purpose, would be just, but nothing more. And between man and man it is not always justice that is required. Between man and woman justice rarely meets the difficulty.
“Comprendre c’est pardonner,” quoted Steinmetz vaguely.
He hesitated to interfere between Paul and his wife. Axioms are made for crucial moments. A man’s life has been steered by a proverb before this. Some, who have no religion, steer by them all the voyage.
Paul walked slowly to the chair he usually occupied, opposite to Steinmetz, at the writing-table. He walked and sat down as if he had travelled a long distance.
“What is to be done?” asked Steinmetz.
“I do not know. I do not think that it matters much. What do you recommend?”
“There is so much to be done,” answered Steinmetz, “that it is difficult to know what to do first. We must not forget that De Chauxville is furious. He will do all the harm of which he is capable at once. We must not forget that the country is in a state of smoldering revolt, and that we have two women, two English ladies, entrusted to our care.”
Paul moved uneasily in his chair. His companion had struck the right note. This large man was happiest when he was tiring himself out.
“Yes; but about Etta?” he said.
And the sound of his voice made Steinmetz wince. There is nothing so heartrending as the sight of dumb suffering.
“You must see her,” answered he reflectively. “You must see her, of course. She may be able to explain.”
He looked across the table beneath his shaggy gray eyebrows. Paul did not at that moment look a likely subject for explanations—even the explanations of a beautiful woman. But there was one human quantity which in all his experience Karl Steinmetz had never successfully gauged—namely, the extent of a woman’s power over the man who loves, or at one time has loved her.
“She cannot explain away Stépan Lanovitch’s ruined life. She can hardly explain away a thousand deaths from unnatural causes every winter, in this province alone.”
This was what Steinmetz dreaded—justice.
“Give her the opportunity,” he said.
Paul was looking out of the window. His singularly firm mouth was still and quiet—not a mouth for explanations.
“I will, if you like,” he said.
“I do like, Paul. I beg of you to do it. And remember that—she is not a man.”
This, like other appeals of the same nature, fell on stony ground. Paul simply did not understand it. In all the years of his work among the peasants it is possible that some wellspring of conventional charity had been dried up—scorched in the glare of burning injustice. He was not at this moment in a mood to consider the only excuse that Steinmetz seemed to be able to urge.
The sun had set
