"Well, what?" she demanded, smiling.
"An angel."
"How weak!"
"All language is weak, when used to describe such a woman as you, madame. I take my leave. Your servant!"
"And my friend?"
"To the death, madame!"
He went out as stiff and solemn as ever, with the conviction that he had parted from Jezebel's cousin-german. Nevertheless, he admired her prodigiously, especially as he intended to put into his own pockets the two thousand pounds she had so tactfully earned, and so foolishly rejected. The bureaucracy would never hear of her folly, and it would be a pity to return money which a poor official could bank against evil days. Not that Aksakoff expected these. The capture of Demetrius, without publicity, and so cleverly achieved, would gain him infinite credit as an efficient servant of the Czar. "A charming and astute woman," he thought gratefully, when ruminating on certain advancement. "But dangerous," added Prudence.
Leah went about for the next seven days with her head in the air, and with a contempt for those people who found renunciation difficult. She could renounce, with ease: had she not refused a large sum of money because she felt that it was wrong to take it? What self-denial! She felt aggressively virtuous, and but for the circumstances would have liked to trumpet her perfections in the street. That she did not do so was further self-denial and a flattering conscience, with which Providence had nothing to do, assured her that she was a pearl amongst women. Now that Demetrius was out of sight she calmly put him out of mind, and began to think how she could prevent Askew from spoiling Jim's nefarious courting of the Spanish lady. There was no way, so far as she could see, since the sailor's love had grown cold, and she had no bonds in which to bind him. But she trusted to that luck which the fetish always sent her way, and sure enough the luck came, but some weeks later. Beforehand the fetish, still annoyed by her prayer to another god, sent her a reminder that it could be disagreeable. A bolt from the blue came in the shape of a telegram from Firmingham.
"Come to me at once," wired the Marchioness. "Yacht lost off Brest. Duke and Frith and most of crew drowned. Come."
"She might have spared the last word," said Leah, staring and stunned.