"I have done it before now," I answered, still thinking of Olga, and my thoughts for some reason slipped back to the first meeting on the Moscow platform.
She paused and looked away from me for a moment as if hesitating; and then leaning so close to me that I could feel her warm breath on my cheek as she spoke, while her grasp tightened on my arm, she said in a tone of deep feeling:—
"I have been wronged. You see me here as I am and what I am; but save for the happiness you have made me feel in being with you, I am the most wretched woman in all Russia. Will you help me? Dare you?" And she seemed to hang on my words as she waited for my reply, her eyes searching mine as if to read my answer there.
I was about to reply with a pledge inspired by the enthusiasm with which she had fired me, when my instinctive caution restrained me. She was quick to see my moment's hesitation and not willing to risk a refusal, she added hastily:—
"We cannot talk of this here. I ought not to have spoken of it now: but you seem to have drawn my very soul from me. Come to me to-morrow to my house. I will be alone at three. You will come—my friend?" An indescribable solicitude spoke through her last two words, all suggestive of infinite trust in me.
"Certainly," I cried. "And certainly your friend, if I dare."
She answered with a glance; and then seemed to cast aside her excitement. Rising she let me lead her back to the ball-room.
When I left her there were others round us, but as she bowed I caught a glance and the whispered words:—
"I trust you."
I turned away half bewildered, and went home at once, pondering what was to be the upshot of this new development.