“I am not acting or lying now. Trust me and I will give up all this Russian spying business and never touch it again. I want to feel I am working for you, not against you. My God, I will do anything, anything, if you will but let me.”
“I have already had too clear a proof of that to wish for any more. Your carriage is waiting, Baroness.”
She gazed at me intently; and gradually her features and the expression of her eyes hardened.
“As you will—but that decision will cost you dear. The men whom you have helped or are going to help with your money are assassins; and when they have done their work and when the city runs red with blood, and both the Queen and her advocate, Gatrina, lie dead among their victims, you will remember this hour and your rejection of my help; and eat out your heart in belated, unavailing regret. Do you still persist in sending me away?”
“Your carriage is waiting,” I repeated doggedly; and she went without another word.
I returned to my library feeling very much disturbed. I was cooking a dish that didn’t promise to be easy of digestion. I could see that, without the help of Nikolitch’s words and Elma’s dramatic confirmation of them. What she had said about assassination had impressed me more than I cared to own; and I recalled Nikolitch’s uneasy hope on that score. Two people more unlike than he and Elma it would be difficult to find; and yet both appeared to hold much the same opinion.
Then there was this reported engagement to Elma and all the string of complications arising out of it. There was only too much reason to believe that it had served its end, as she had said, in regard to Gatrina. It was like a net about my feet, entangling and hampering me; and how to cut myself free from it was more than I could see.
I had given my word to Gatrina on the previous night that my coming to Belgrade had had nothing to do with Elma; and if I had but known of the report that morning I could have denied it to her. I could have gnashed my teeth as I recalled her phrase about “other things” she had heard from Elma at the Court. I could see now what she had meant; and it was just the opening I could have used, had I but known; perhaps given me for the very purpose. I had let it pass in ignorance; but I could readily understand how she would interpret my silence.
To contradict it all now was infinitely difficult. I couldn’t walk about the streets shouting it out to the crowd. The door of the Palace was closed to me; and probably that of Gatrina’s house as well.
But her visit by the Queen’s desire, as she had so coldly said, gave me the right to return it, and I did so that afternoon. Without result, however. The Princess was at the Palace, I was informed.