“But are you safe?” burst out Peter. “You are in danger enough from those who may know you killed the Ataman, without revealing your jewels and your good clothes! There may be a rising against Shimilin at any time—the Bolsheviki—the bandits from Mongolia! It is too bad that you have put on these clothes—for your own safety!”
“You are afraid I shall be killed because I killed Zorogoff?” she asked, with the ghost of a smile on her lips.
“Yes, I am afraid,” he went on earnestly. “You should have remained in the dress of a samovar girl——”
“Oh, but I have done playing at being a samovar girl,” she laughed. “If I am to die, I shall die as a Kirsakoff, and not as a servant. So you are leaving the city soon?”
“I am leaving at once. Shimilin has sent me word that a private car is in the yards—and I cannot disregard such a hint, for he may mean it as a command. And—why don’t you go too?”
“I? Go? Where?” she seemed amazed at the idea.
“To Vladivostok. You would be safe there, and safe on the train. Take this chance to escape from the city, while Shimilin has control.”
She sat down and gestured him to a chair before her.
“I, too, have heard from Shimilin—about the car. But I shall not go.”
Peter’s face showed his disappointment. He had hoped that she might be induced to leave Chita, and by getting away from the scene of her father’s death and her old home, her memory of why Peter had gone to the city would be dimmed. Now he saw that she was determined to let him go his way—she wanted to see him no more, she wanted to forget him. And yet, he remembered, she had told him she loved him! He wondered if it were possible that she had admitted a love only because she wanted to save her father. Was that what she had meant when she said she had done with playing at being a samovar girl? That she had done with duplicity because there was no further necessity for duping him?