His eyes fell on her black dress, then they met her frank gaze, and the two looked straight at each other as she went on.
'The money was made by other people's losses. I know that, and I feel that the money is not my own. The question is, how can I best use it?'
'You asked Count Litvinoff this? May I in turn ask how he answered?'
'He thought—he said—' Clare hesitated a moment—'he declined to give me advice,' she finished.
Clare started at a sudden angry light that came into the eyes of the man beside her. She felt she had been indiscreet and even guilty. For she remembered how Litvinoff had followed his refusal of counsel by telling her how that there were 'men, his friends, who, if they knew that she had asked him for this advice, and he had refused to give it, would say he had become traitor, and kill him like a rat.' Suppose Petrovitch were one of these men! Clare did not wait for him to speak, but answered the look.
'You are angry with him,' she said. 'I had no right to tell you that, but since I have given you my confidence I know you will respect it, and not let it influence your conduct towards him.'
'Your friend is safe as far as I am concerned,' Petrovitch answered, passing his hand over his long beard. 'Do not be alarmed for him. You take a deep interest in his welfare—is it not so?'
The question was asked earnestly, and not impertinently, and Clare felt no inclination to resent it. There was a short silence between them, and it was manifest to them that Mrs Quaid was holding the Philistines enthralled by her views on education. Miss Stanley answered slowly and softly,—
'You know my dear father is dead now. Our acquaintance with Count Litvinoff began with his saving my father's life at the risk of his own, and that is not the only good deed I have known him do, though that alone will make me always interested in him.'