"Then I will answer for you," said Rosalie, her thin sharp voice growing rounder and fuller, "but you must bear in mind I have no reality to go upon, only surmise and observation. Very well, then, I say Miss Hildreth has not only met and known Count Mellikoff before, but she has known him well, and she is afraid of him. That surprises you, Mr. Tremain, and yet I don't know why it should. You must remember you have seen nothing of Miss Hildreth for ten years, and you know nothing—positively nothing—of her life during that time. Why shouldn't she have known Count Mellikoff, and why shouldn't she have reason to fear him? Ten years is a very long time; long enough to drink deep of experience; long enough to plant, and sow, and reap. Long enough to lose more than one friend, make more than one enemy; long enough to sink oneself to the neck in intrigue, and to bury oneself in crime. May not Miss Hildreth have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and found the evil overweigh the good? May not Count Mellikoff have been her friend, and become her enemy? Is it not possible that each is striving to outwit the other, and each is afraid of the other? I see you think me rather mad, Mr. Tremain, and credit me with a morbid love of melodrama, or a desire to make mountains out of mole-hills. Ah, very well, let us say no more about it: only when next you see Miss Hildreth and Count Mellikoff together, watch his manner towards her, and see for yourself if he carries himself as a stranger to her. Ten years is a long time for a woman to wander about the world alone."
She finished abruptly, and turned away from him, leaving him without another word.
Philip's meditations, if unpleasant before, were now distinctly disagreeable. He disliked mystery, and above all things and most of all he disliked it in connection with a woman. In his eyes all women should be, like Cæsar's wife, above suspicion, and it hurt and galled him that even a shadow of aspersion should rest on Patricia's fair fame.
And yet, as Miss James had said, ten years was a long time, and Miss Hildreth gave no explanation, beyond a vague and general one, as to how she had spent that time. Might there not be some secret bound up in those years; some secret between herself and Vladimir Mellikoff, which it was wisest to leave so buried? Was it possible of belief that in all that time Patricia had never consoled herself for the lost love of her youth?
Hers was an impetuous nature, open to sudden convictions, quick to act, ardent, impressionable; with such a temperament in the hands of Vladimir Mellikoff, what imprudence might not have taken place? Even a secret marriage, and a subsequent purgatory of disenchantment, were not impossible consequences. Indeed, the range of possibilities was so varied and so unsatisfactory, Mr. Tremain felt himself unable either to seize or exorcise them.
At the tea hour that same day, Miss James asked suddenly, in a lull of conversation, bending forward and addressing Patricia in her highest voice:
"Oh, Miss Hildreth, by the way, Mr. Tremain and I have been discussing your long absence from your native land, and your possible and probable experiences. Will you tell me, for it was rather a question of difference between us, have you ever been to Russia; do you know St. Petersburg?"
Something in Rosalie's sharp, hard tones commanded attention, and when she finished all eyes were turned upon Patricia, as she sat in a high-backed chair; her tea-gown of marvellous old lace and fluttering ribbons seeming but a fitting setting to her delicate beauty. Vladimir Mellikoff put down his cup of untasted tea, and drew near the central group.
Miss Hildreth looked up a little surprised at Rosalie's earnestness. She raised the tiny apostle spoon in her fingers, and studied it attentively as she answered:
"Oh, yes, indeed, Miss James, I have done the whole grand tour. I know my London, my Paris, and my Petersburg thoroughly, and like a loyal American place the Peerage and the Almanach de Gotha next to my Bible." Her voice was clear and mocking, and a trifle artificial.