“Let me get rid of some of this;” and I spread out my hands and glanced down at my clothes, and looked up to find her smiling. “You can’t tell how glad I am to see that,” I added.
“You will see no smiles if you keep me waiting. I will forgive the dirt if you will only tell me.”
“I could tell you more comfortably if we were en route for the frontier.”
“Perhaps we shall be soon. Come,” and she led me into a room, all dirty as I was.
“Disaster is easy to tell. Prince Kalkov knows everything about your plans, your name, your real part in Boreski’s business, your fight against him—everything;” and as shortly as I could I told her all I knew and had learnt from the Prince.
She listened with scarcely an interruption, and when I finished sat thinking with pursed lips and gathered brows.
“It was very clever and very devilish,” she said. “And for the time it means failure. You are right. I must fly, and that to-night.”
“I am glad you see that.”
“I have had to do it before—for a time. But I shall, of course, come back. I am not beaten. Flight is only one of the tactics in the fight I am waging. I shall never cease to fight until I win or they kill me. But he has beaten me for the time, and now that he knows my motive, he will be harder to fight than ever.”
“It is I who have ruined you by betraying this place through my stupid blundering.”