Without moving a muscle of his face, Sergius retired, and Jack could not help thinking that the old man, at his master’s bidding, would as calmly cut a guest’s throat as offer him a glass of wine.
In the morning the count appeared. At first he seemed much annoyed, and talked coldly on various subjects.
Jack, who felt very sorry for him, treated him with the utmost courtesy, and presently the count referred to the occurrence of the afternoon before.
Jack expressed his regret at the affair, and said how distasteful it was to him to be mixed up in what was really a family squabble.
‘The fact is,’ said the count, ‘Vladimir has taken it into his head to be madly jealous of you.’
‘My dear count, is it not absurd for him to be jealous of a plain English sergeant of Lancers. Has he such a poor opinion of the daughter of one of the oldest families in Russia?’
The count looked keenly at Jack.
‘The worst of it is,’ he said, rather shamefacedly, ‘my sister is young and very impressionable. She met you under somewhat romantic circumstances on the day of the Alma; then you came here at the point of death, and she pitied you. You are really a gentleman, though you choose to serve in the ranks of your army. You two have been thrown much together, and’——
‘My dear count, it is time I went. I will not stay here to embarrass you. Send me at once to Sebastopol.’
‘That I will never do,’ cried the count vehemently, ‘if only to thwart Vladimir; and, besides, Irma will not hear of it. I have tried to get you exchanged; but, unfortunately, you are—er’——