"Tregethner, Hamylton Tregethner," he murmured, repeating the name as if it were not wholly unfamiliar to him. Then after a pause he asked me where the real Lieutenant Petrovitch was; and questioned me searchingly and very shrewdly as to the whole details of my change of identity. I concealed nothing.
"You English are devils," he said, when his questions were nearly exhausted. "I hate the lot of you—except you. And you're as big a devil as any of them. But you have the pluck of a hundred."
I shrugged my shoulders, laughed, lolled back in my chair and lighted a cigarette.
"I've enjoyed it," I said, "and that's the plain truth. I didn't like the lies I had to tell; but then I never had any training in the diplomatic service, and that makes the difference. But all the same I've enjoyed it; and what's more, if it had been possible, I'd have fought for the Little Father as keenly as any born Russ in the ranks. But it's over, and so far as I'm concerned, you can do what you like with me. I should like to save that girl. She's one in ten thousand for pluck. And you owe her something too, as she saved my life from a treacherous thrust of Devinsky's sword for you to take it. You might let her have her liberty in its place. It's infernally hard on the girl that her cowardly brute of a brother should let her in for all this mess; and then that I, with all the good will in the world, should thrust her deeper into the mud. It's damned hard!"
The Prince was watching me closely and thinking hard.
"Why did you hesitate to accept my proposal?" he asked, sharply.
"For a very plain reason. While I appreciated the honour and advantage of an alliance with your sister, I loved Olga Petrovitch, and preferred to marry her."
"I won't tell my sister that," he said, laughing sardonically. After a pause he added:—"How much does—your sister know of our matter?"
"Everything."
"Names?" and he stared as if to penetrate right into my brain.