His bluntness astounded me.
"Do you take me for an assassin?"
"No. I take you for a very resolute young man, with a great skill of fence, a large desire to push your fortunes high, and not too much scruple to act like a sword scabbard between your legs and trip you up. If you weren't that, you'd be no use to me. As you are, I open before you a career such as lies before no other man in the Emperor's wide dominions at the present moment. Do this, and you win a woman as rich and beautiful and, as women go, as good as any in Russia for a wife; and you can ask and have almost what place you like, either in or out of the army."
"And if I refuse?"
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"You won't refuse," he said, shaking his head. "If you do, you will be a young fool—too foolish to be trusted at large."
I knew what he meant; and when I looked at him next, I understood why men feared him. That laugh of his would usher a man to the knout or the gallows.
I thought rapidly.
"I like the project," I replied. "But can you arrange the meeting?"
He was as quick as the devil, and detected the false note in my voice.