"That will doubtless be proved, Princess Tatyana, and it may be that I can help," he said suavely. "Indeed I am not without influence with the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies."
"And why should you not be--you who are----!"
Again she paused, her hand below her cassock fingering the dossier of Gregory Hochwald.
"I am--what, Tatyana?" he asked keenly.
She shrugged and looked away.
"The apostle of--of license!" she said chokingly.
The promptness of her reply reassured him. She believed in the Provisional Government and the dangers that now beset it were very real to her.
He smiled and turned to her softly.
"Aren't your mission and mine the same, after all? We desire a Russia free--not alone from medievalism but from the traitors within her borders who have stolen the food from her soldiers, profited upon munitions which never reached those who upheld the honor of Russia at the front--the capitalists and those they put in power. I need not go on. You know their names and places--vipers that any true Russian of the nobility or of the people should pledge his life to crush. You too, Tatyana--you are their enemy as I am. Will you deny it?"
Tanya had listened in silence, amazed at the fervor of his denunciation and at his plausibility. Had she not held close against her body the proofs of his perfidy, had she not known the secrets of his Russian intrigue, his clever tongue might have persuaded her. As it was, having in her misery already planned a course of action, she merely answered evasively. Gregory Khodkine should be no more clever than she. At the present moment she seemed to be completely in his power, and until a proper opportunity presented, she must meet him at his own game. This was not the first time he had declared his love for her. There had been other moments in Petrograd and at Nemi when Gregory Khodkine had chosen to dignify her with his attentions, but beneath his suave demonstrations of affection, she had always been sure of his venality and felt the threat of a danger. Her father at this moment lay in a cell in the Prison of St. Peter and St. Paul, a prisoner through this man's agency, and of those others who had sworn falsely. She had blamed Gregory Khodkine, because she had guessed that the currents which actuated him had their source among the high places. Now she knew what and where, for the proof was in her possession, and that knowledge made her fear and hate him the more.