Tom Wilkins stood the monotony of waiting very well. Used to the loneliness of the plains, his own thoughts sufficed. But Florence had no resources in herself. Accustomed to the clatter of New York, she had been bored even by the quietness of the life on the Sea Spume, and this was ten times worse. Day after day she did nothing but twirl her fingers and think about Baron Demidroff and his wonderful tale of Princess Yves Napraxine.
Such was her mood on the third afternoon of her imprisonment, when Wilkins, with a fatuity scarcely credible, attempted to cheer her up by making love to her. Florence promptly went into hysterics, and Wilkins had the time of his life in quieting her. That night, after pretending to go to bed, she slipped away, rowing herself ashore in the only small boat belonging to the sloop, and took the night train for St. Petersburg. By the time that Wilkins missed her she was at the office of Baron Demidroff.
Even when there, however, she found it none too easy to reach the Baron. Totally ignorant of the language, and unable to ask her way, she had to trust to luck, and luck did not favor her. It was late in the afternoon—the afternoon of the same day and at about the same hour when Caruth and Marie were leaving Gatchina—that she at last found her way to the Baron’s office and sent in a card inscribed with Olga’s name, but with the additional words, “Princess Yves Napraxine,” pencilled in the corner.
But after that events moved fast. Scarcely had her card vanished when the door was flung open and the Baron rushed in, both hands extended.
“Ah, Madame la Princesse!” he exclaimed. “To think of seeing you here! Come in! Come in!” Eagerly he urged her toward the inner office, pouring out the while a flood of welcomings. “Well! Well!” he exclaimed. “To think of it. Where did you come from, Princess? Where have you been all these days?”
Florence seated herself and stared at him with cool insolence. Instinctively she knew that she would gain no more from him by softness than she had gained in former days from the “Johnnies” in New York. Men were all alike, she decided, and the weeping, clinging girl was a back number.
“Back off! Back off!” she ordered. “I’m not telling where I’ve been yet.”
“But the gold, Princess! The gold!”
“The gold is all to the downy. It’s where I can put my hand on it. You see, Baron, I’m one of the new woman push, and I ain’t trusting anybody. You might play fair if I turned the stuff over to you, and you might not. It’s me for the sure thing every time. That’s why I got me suitors to carry the gold off and hide it away till I got guarantees.”
Instead of showing vexation, the Baron chuckled. Such impudence from one altogether in his power was refreshing. Florence had made no mistake in her treatment of him. The Baron admired any one who was clever enough to see through him. Besides, the girl was very handsome.