“We will see,” I replied; and having led her back to the ballroom I got away from the Palace as soon as I could, to think over the latest and most strange development of the situation.
CHAPTER XIX.
PRINCE ALBREVICS.
When I came to think over that promise to Gatrina, to furnish proofs of the army’s intentions, I felt I had sawn off a log which I might find too big to haul. And the thought made me considerably uneasy.
I had given the pledge in a moment of excitement; and now that I was cool, the difficulty of keeping it looked very formidable indeed.
It troubled me a good deal more than the frank declaration of war from Elma—although that promised quite sufficient embarrassments of its own. That she would keep her word I had no doubt; and I might gamble on it that she would do her worst.
Yet in one respect it cleared my course. There was no longer any sort of use in finessing with the Russian party. Elma knew too much for me to think of being able to deceive her; while her preposterous condition that there should be a sham renewal of our old engagement was too repugnant and preposterous to be entertained for an instant.
Neither was there any thought of coquetting with the Court. That involved apparent acquiescence in the scheme for Gatrina’s marriage; the very thing I was firmly bent upon stopping at any cost.
I was thus confirmed in my decision of the previous day to secure the influence of the army, and to trust to that to carry me through. But it was just in that respect I had increased my difficulties by the pledge to Gatrina. I could only keep it by getting Colonel Petrosch to back up my statement to her; and here was the trouble.
I recalled Nikolitch’s advice to speak plainly to the Colonel about Gatrina; but it was the one subject of all others which I was altogether disinclined to discuss with him.
And the disinclination was strengthened when he and Nikolitch arrived; for he looked about the last individual in the world whom I would have chosen for a confidence of the kind.