"I will."
This answer seemed to increase her anger, but at that instant another movement of the throng separated us, and I went away to find Olga.
We sat and chatted and laughed together--especially at my mistake with the countess--and presently glancing up I saw opposite to us the woman who had acted the little bit of melodrama with me. She was eyeing us both now angrily.
"Who"s that?" I asked, pointing her out to my sister. The girl shook her head gravely.
"I wish you didn"t know, Alexis."
"Oh, do I know? I"ve put my foot in it then, I expect;" and I told her what had happened. She smiled, and then shook her head again, more gravely than before.
"All Moscow knows that you and Madame Paula Tueski are thick friends; and you ought to know that you have set many scandalous tongues wagging."
"Well, she"s a very handsome woman," said I, glancing across at her.
"Your favourite style of beauty was always somewhat masculine and fleshly," said Olga in a very sisterly and very severe tone.
"Yes, I"m afraid I"ve not always admired those things I ought to have admired."
"Say, rather, you have often admired those things which you ought not.
_Com_mission, not _o_mission."
"Well, I"ve a new commission now, and you gave it me," said I, playing on her word and looking closely at her. I took rather a pleasure in watching the colour ebb and flow in her bright expressive face.
She looked up now, very steadily, right into my eyes, as if to read my thoughts; and then looked down again and was silent. And in some way the look made me sorry I had jested. After a pause she said in her usual direct way:--
"We are wasting time. There is so much I must yet tell you, and some of it is very disagreeable. You and I have quarrelled more than once about that woman, Paula Tueski. You wished me to know her, and I would not; I wished you to give her up, and you would not."
"I"ll do it at once," I said, readily. "I shall not feel the pang----"
"Do, please, be serious," she interrupted in her turn, with a little foot tap of impatience, while a frown struggled with a smile for the mastery in her expression. The smile had the best of it at first, but the frown won in the end. "Paula Tueski, you have often told me, is a dangerous woman. As wife of the Chief of the Secret Police she has considerable power and influence; though to be candid I never could tell whether you said this as an excuse for continuing your friendship with her, or because you were really afraid of her. You are not very brave, Alexis, you know."
"No, I"m afraid I"m not," I admitted. "But at any rate I won"t try to force her on you for the future. I think I can promise that."
"She"s an exceedingly ambitious woman, and means you no good, Alexis,"
said Olga, very energetically. "If you can give her up safely I hope you will." She was very earnest about this, and I was going to question her more closely when someone came up to claim her for a dance.
Very soon after this I left, taking care to keep out of the way of the woman who seemed so anxious that I should speak to her. I remembered the "P.T." of the diary and of the correspondence; and I saw that there might easily be some ugly complications unless I was very careful.
I walked home to my rooms and was very thoughtful on the way. This legacy of old sweethearts was the most unpleasant feature of my new inheritance as well as possibly the most dangerous. It was just the kind of knot, too, that a sword could not cut; and before the night closed, I had a very jarring reminder of this.
CHAPTER VI.
A LEGACY OF LOVE.
As I approached the broad deep doorway of my house I saw a tall man m.u.f.fled up, standing half concealed in the shadow of one of the pillars.
"Who are you, and what are you doing there?" I asked peremptorily, stopping and looking at him.
"What should I be doing, but waiting for Lieutenant Petrovitch?"
answered the fellow, stepping forward.
"Well, I am Lieutenant Petrovitch. What do you want?"
"You are not the lieutenant."
"Then you are not looking for Lieutenant Petrovitch," I returned, as I opened my door. "Be off with you." I spoke firmly, but his reply had rather disconcerted me.
Instead of going he advanced toward me when he saw me open the door, and shot a glance of surprise at me.
"I beg you honour"s pardon. I didn"t recognise you; and when you pretended not to know me, I thought it was someone else. You"ve disguised yourself by that change in your face, sir."
There was a mixture of servility and impudence in the man"s manner which galled me. He spoke like a fawning sponger: and yet with just such a suggestion of threat and familiarity in his manner as might come from a low a.s.sociate in some dirty work which he thought gave him a hold over me.
"What is it you want?" I spoke as sternly as before; and the fellow cringed and bowed as he answered with the same suggestion of familiar insolence.
"What have I waited here five hours for but to speak to your lordship privately--waited, as I always do, patiently. It"s safer inside, lieutenant."
"Come in, then." It was clearly best for me to know all he had to say.
As soon as we were inside and I had turned up the lights I placed him close to the biggest of them; and a more villainous, hangdog looking rascal I never wish to see. A redhaired, dirty, cunning, drinking Jew of the lowest cla.s.s; with lies and treachery and deceit written on every feature and gesture. The only thing truthful about him was the evidence of character stamped on his self-convicting appearance.
"I wonder what you are to me," I thought as I scanned him closely, his flinty shifting eyes darting everywhere to escape my gaze.
"Well, what do you want? I"m about sick of you." A quick lifting of the head and eyebrows let a questioning glance of mingled malice, hate, and menace dart up into my face.
"Lieutenant, your child is starving and his mother also; and I, her father, am tired of working my fingers to the bone to maintain them both."
"What are you working at now?" I asked with a sneer. I spoke in this way to hide my unpleasant surprise at the unsavoury news that lay behind his words. The more I looked at him the more was I impressed with a conviction of his rascality: but the fact that he was a scoundrel did not at all exclude the possibility that some ugly episode concerning me lay behind. On the contrary it increased the probability.
"I"ve not come to talk about my work, but to get money," said my visitor in a surly tone. "And money I must have."
"Blackmail," was my instant conclusion: and my line of conduct was as promptly taken. There is but one way to take with blackmailers--crush them.
"Did you understand what I said just now? I am sick of you and your ways, and I have done with you."
The man shifted about uneasily and nervously without replying at once, and then in a sly, muttering tone, and with an indescribable suggestion of menace said:--
"There are some ugly stories afloat, Lieutenant."
"Yes: and in Russia, those who tell them smell the atmosphere of a gaol as often as those against whom they are told. A word from me and you know where you will be within half a dozen hours." This was a safe shot with such a rascal.
"But you"ll never speak that word," he said sullenly. "We"ve talked all this over before. You can"t shake me off. I know too much."
Obviously my former self had handled this man badly: probably through weakness: and had allowed him to get an ugly hold. He was presuming on this now.