“I am really loyal,” she murmured.
“It is I who am the subject to-night. I am only an American.” And as I spoke I captured her hand and pressed my lips to it. “It is you, I say, who are conqueror.”
I went up the broad stairway, leaving her looking after me, smiling, and I thought triumphant; and I hoped, pleased.
Chapter VII—“I AM NOT THE CZAR”
THE apartments to which I was shown were as luxurious in their way as the room in which I had been received, and as everything had obviously been ready in advance, I had a shrewd suspicion that Helga and Boreski had quite counted upon my remaining in the house.
It was a queer position in all truth; and dismissing the man who had been told to attend upon me, I lit a cigar and sat down to think it out.
One thing was quite plain. Old Kalkov had been fooled as to the objective of all the business. The marriage of Boreski with the Duchess Stephanie was a mere cover for the other scheme, and a very clever cover too, seeing that it had looked so amazingly like the sole end in view.
That was Helga’s wit; and to a point it had succeeded. But where her plan had fallen to pieces was in believing that the Emperor would be so mad as to come and see her in his own august person. The thing was so monstrously absurd that I was surprised such sharp wits as hers had believed it possible and had not suspected some imposture.