CHAPTER V.
A WOMAN'S LOGIC.
The first check experienced by Count Mellikoff in the fulfilment of his well-laid plans, was one of which he took but slight account.
In calling into action the machinery of the law, and thereby obtaining the warrant for Miss Hildreth's arrest, he overlooked one point. He had designedly delayed this summary action until such a moment, when knowing the Newbolds and Mr. Tremain to be well out of his way, he could proceed without apprehension of interference on their part.
He was quite well aware that to act against their combined forces would be a far more serious undertaking than to attack Miss Hildreth alone and unbefriended. But could he once accomplish her arrest, he believed that here in America, as in Russia, he had only to demand an official inquiry, as a matter of form, and it would at once be granted; at which inquiry, trusting to the strength of his evidence, he foresaw her immediate committal for trial, and expected by the time the beau monde were returning to New York, and before a cabal could be raised in Miss Hildreth's behalf, to be already on his way to Petersburg with his prisoner, about whose subsequent fate, when once she was handed over to the Imperial Chancellerie, he had no need to concern himself.
Then he would be free to seek Olga, and, laying his love and his life at her feet, demand that reward for the sake of which she had persuaded him to undertake this mission. Patouchki also would be convinced of his loyalty by this last signal service in the Emperor's behalf; and even the Tsar himself might bestow a further distinction upon him; one ribbon more, perhaps, to swell the number of those upon which his beautiful Olga set such store.
And, indeed, so far fortune had favoured him and his plans; up to a certain time events marched according as he directed. The warrant was obtained; Miss Hildreth was arrested; and, save John Mainwaring, none of her special friends were in town to stand by her or act in her defence. On Mainwaring, Count Mellikoff bestowed not a thought; he had not even seen him in the crowd of transient guests at the Folly, and his name was suggestive of nothing.
The matter of an immediate official inquiry, however, was not so easily managed. Count Mellikoff found countless obstacles to overcome, raised by that very organ, the law, which so far he had played upon to his own purpose. Innumerable technicalities and difficulties were for ever cropping up, resulting in unheard-of delays. Even Mellikoff's patience gave way at last, and he anathematised the entire Western continent, its institutions and customs, in language more forcible than polite. Despite of his choler, however, Vladimir Mellikoff was obliged to swallow his wrath, and bear with what patience he could muster, that most difficult of all trials—enforced inaction.
Meantime he heard again from Patouchki, and the tone of his letter was such as to create a fever of anxiety and unrest, that threatened to prostrate him mentally and physically. From Olga Naundorff he received neither word nor sign.
And so the long, hot days came and went, and by none of the waiting actors in that life-drama were they ever forgotten in the years that followed.