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Her innocence or her guilt is, for the moment, beside the question. Neither is any business of yours. Both, on the contrary, are my affair. Innocent or guilty, the Princess Howard Alexis must from this moment be freed from your persecution." De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders. He tapped on the floor impatiently with the toe of his neat riding-boot. "Allons!" he said. "Let me pass!"
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 to-morrow 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.
There is no simpler method of discovering a secret than to ignore its existence. It is possible that De Chauxville became aware of Catrina's sidelong glances of anxiety in his direction. He may have divined that silence was more effective than speech. He sat looking straight in front of him, as if too deeply absorbed in his own thoughts to take even a passing interest in the scenery.
Such people are not of much use in these days, when we like to touch things lightly, adorning a tale but pointing no moral. "I would ask you to believe that your society was one incentive to make me accept the countess's kind hospitality," the Frenchman observed after a pause. "And?" De Chauxville looked at her. He had not met many women of solid intellect. "And?" repeated Catrina.
"My very dear De Chauxville," he said, without lookup, "your epigrams are lost on me. I know most of them. I have heard them before. If you have anything to tell me about Mrs. Sydney Bamborough, for Heaven's sake tell it to me quite plainly. I like plain dishes and unvarnished stories. I am a German, you know; that is to say, a person with a dull palate and a thick head."
"I know you well enough," retorted De Chauxville hoarsely, "to be aware that it was you who sold the Charity League papers to Vassili in Paris. I know you well enough, madame, to be aware of your present position in regard to your husband. If I say a word in the right quarter you would never leave Russia alive.
Was, for instance, our friend the Prince Pavlo implicated in that unfortunate affair?" Catrina flushed suddenly. She did not take her eyes from the ponies. She was conscious of the unwonted color in her cheeks, which was slowly dying away beneath her companion's relentless gaze. "You need not trouble to reply, mademoiselle," said De Chauxville, with his dark smile; "I am answered."
He certainly looked as if he believed it when Lady Mealhead told him and his expressive Gallic eyes waxed tender at the mention of her mother, the relict of the late clergyman, whose name had somehow been overlooked by Crockford. A Frenchman loves his mother in the abstract. Nor could M. de Chauxville take exception at young Cyril Squyrt, the poet. Cyril looked like a poet.
Something like a smile wavered for a moment beneath his waxed mustache. Catrina's fingers, supple and strong, struck in great chords the air of a gloomy march from the half-forgotten muse of some monastic composer. While she played, Claude de Chauxville proceeded with his delicate touch to play on the hidden chords of an untamed heart. "A man's privilege," he repeated musingly.
With engaging frankness De Chauxville accepted every thing. It is an art soon acquired and soon abused. There is something honest in an ungracious acceptance of favors. Steinmetz suggested that perhaps M. de Chauxville had lunched sparsely, and the Frenchman admitted that such was the case, but that he loved afternoon tea above all meals. "It is so innocent and simple I know.
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