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At the far end of the room a man was standing in an expectant attitude. There was something furtive about this intruder, and at the same time familiar to Paul, who peered at him through the gloom. Then the man came hurriedly forward. "Ah, Pavlo, Pavlo!" he said in a deep, hollow voice. "I could not expect you to know me."
The Third Section was wholly unrepresented in Bulgaria and His Majesty's protection on campaign consisted merely of a handful of Cossacks. No cordon of sentries surrounded his simple camp; his tent at Pavlo and the dilapidated Turkish house which for weeks was his residence at Gorni Studen were alike destitute of any guards.
The weak blue eyes looked into the strong face and read nothing there. "I doubt," said Paul, "whether it is right for you to continue sacrificing Catrina for the sake of the little good that you are able to do. You are hampered in your good work to such an extent that the result is very small, while the pain you give is very great." "But is that so, Pavlo? Is my child unhappy?"
You collect your rents yourself. You have no German agents no German vampires about you. There are a thousand things suspicious about Prince Pavlo Alexis if those that be in high places only come to think about it. They have not come to think about it thanks to our care and to your English independence. But that is only another reason why we should redouble our care.
I have no doubt that our astute friend Karl Steinmetz will manage to hold them in check. But whatever the end of the demonstration, the outcome will be the impossibility of a longer residence in this country for the Prince Pavlo Alexis. A regiment of soldiers could hardly make it possible." "I do not understand," said Etta, "what you describe as a demonstration is it a rising?"
"And now," she said cheerfully, "let us change the subject. I have inflicted enough of myself and my affairs upon you for one day. Tell me about yourself. Why were you in Russia last summer?" "I am half a Russian," he answered. "My mother was Russian, and I have estates there." Her surprise was a triumph of art. "Oh! You are not Prince Pavlo Alexis?" she exclaimed. "Yes, I am."
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."
But no one ever dreams of being sober and vigilant at the right time, so the organization, like many larger such, is a broken reed. The street, bounded on either side by low wooden houses, is, singularly enough, well paved. This, the traveller is told, by the tyrant Prince Pavlo, who made the road because he did not like driving over ruts and through puddles the usual Russian rural thoroughfare.
"Prince Pavlo Alexis," he said, "is a young man who takes a full and daring advantage of his peculiar position. He defies many laws in a quiet, persistent way which impresses the smaller authorities and to a certain extent paralyzes them. He was in the Charity League deeply implicated. He had a narrow escape. He was pulled through by the cleverest man in Russia." "Karl Steinmetz?"
It is to be presumed that Mrs. Sydney Bamborough's memory was short. For it was a matter of common knowledge in the diplomatic circles in which she moved that Mr. Paul Howard Alexis of Piccadilly House, London, and Prince Pavlo Alexis of the province of Tver, were one and the same man.
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