‘Not so,’ said Mazeppa; ‘you are angry and make unjust accusations. Olga, as I have said, was determined to go; she would take her chance like the rest, she declared, and when I said, “What of Chelminsky, Olga?” she replied that both Chelminsky and I and any other Cossack lover might go hang if the Tsar would have her, even a Tsar that spluttered when he spoke and played with a child’s toys. I swear that what I say is true. Go to Moscow and see for yourself, if you will.’
Knowing Olga as I did, I was aware that it might well be as Mazeppa said.
‘It would serve the minx right,’ I replied angrily, ‘if the Tsar should choose her; but of that there is little chance, for I think his choice is already made, and this assembling of the maidens is a formality, a concession to ancient customs, and no more.’
Mazeppa winced at this, by which I knew that he had not yet forgotten his infatuation for Vera Kurbatof.
‘I know not to what choice of the Tsar’s you refer,’ he said. ‘They would scarcely assemble the maidens if it were as you say.’
‘If, as you admit, I was a good prophet on one occasion, why should I not prove all a prophet, and not only half?’ I laughed. ‘You remember well enough that I bade you see how the Tsar watched the face of Vera Kurbatof; be sure that his choice began and will end with her, even though a Mazeppa should woo in rivalry.’
‘I think not,’ said Mazeppa. ‘She would never——;’ he paused, and paced the floor awhile in thought.
I read the Regent’s letter: it was short, and merely made known that it had been decreed that the elder Tsar should take a wife. Maidens of the desired age—about seventeen—would assemble at the Kremlin Palace by the day fixed for their arrival, and those agents appointed in the various districts would be answerable for the despatch of all such maidens, of suitable rank and age, as were to be found in their locality. Mazeppa, being known to her Highness, was by her appointed agent for the Ukraine towns and district.
‘You have acted unfriendly, Mazeppa,’ I said. ‘You should have reflected that being, in a measure, affianced to myself, Olga might be exempted from this formality. The power is in your hands to send or to exempt a maiden.’
‘I tell you, my friend, that the girl would take no denial: she would go. She spoke of you and of me in a breath, declaring that neither for your sake nor for mine would she surrender so great a chance of advancement. “I am no more Chelminsky’s than yours”—those were her words—“and I hope to heaven that I shall be neither his nor yours, but the Tsar’s!”’