“I wish you could believe, madam, that I have no desire except for the good of you all,” I put in.
She fixed her eyes upon me and replied slowly, “I wish I could, sir; but you have influenced my sister so much against us that I find it impossible.”
“How can you think of such pettiness, Katinka, in face of that awful news from Petersburg,” cried Ladislas. “Great God, it passes my comprehension.”
“Are you going, sir?” asked Paul.
“No. I am not. I promised Madame Drakona to remain until her daughter returned, and shall do so.”
“Of course,” agreed Ladislas, pausing a second as he strode up and down the room in great distress. His excitement mounted fast, and his fears of coming trouble in the city, caused by the ill news from St. Petersburg and brought close home by the arrest of Madame Drakona, oppressed him till the burden became almost unbearable.
An hour and more passed in this way. Now and again he would break into fitful heated discussion with Paul and his sister; sometimes he turned to me with feverish speculations about what would happen; anything in the effort to relieve the weight of his trouble-laden thoughts.
Two or three times the telephone bell summoned Paul; and each time he returned the three would hold whispered counsel together; to end in the same way, by Ladislas resuming his anxious pacing of the room from end to end.
At last some message more disturbing than the rest came.
“Paul and I must go. I dare not stay,” he declared. “You will do what must be done here, Robert. They are waiting for us, and God knows what may happen if we do not go;” and paying no heed to my protests, scarcely hearing them, indeed, he and Paul hurried away.