She turned the wick of the spirit-lamp, and the peaceful music of the samovar was still. In her clever eyes there was a little air of sidelong indecision. She could not make up her mind how to take him. Her chiefest method was so old as to be biblical. Yet she could not take him with her eyelids. She had tried.
“You are horribly grave,” she said.
“The situation,” he replied, “is horribly grave.”
Etta looked up at him as he stood before her, and the lamp-light, falling on the perfect oval of her face, showed it to be white and drawn.
“Princess,” said the man, “there are in the lives of some of us times when we cease to be men and women, and become mere human beings. There are times, I mean, when the thousand influences of sex die at one blow of fate. This is such a time. We must forget that you are a beautiful woman; I verily believe that there is none more beautiful in the world. I once knew one whom I admired more, but that was not because she was more beautiful. That, however, is my own story, and this”—he paused and looked round the little room, furnished, decorated for her comfort—“this is your story. We must forget that I am a man, and therefore subject to the influence of your beauty.”
She sat looking up into his strong, grave face, and during all that followed she never moved.
“I know you,” he said, “to be courageous, and must ask you to believe that I exaggerate nothing in what I am about to tell you. I tell it to you instead of leaving Paul to do so because I know his complete fearlessness, and his blind faith in a people who are unworthy of it. He does not realize the gravity of the situation. They are his own people. A sailor never believes that his own ship is unseaworthy.”
“Go on!” said Etta, for he had paused.
“This country,” he continued, “is unsettled. The people of the estate are on the brink of a revolt. You know what the Russian peasant is. It will be no Parisian imeute, half noise, half laughter. We cannot hope to hold this old place against them. We cannot get away from it. We cannot send for help because we have no one to send. Princess, this is no time for half-confidences. I know—for I know these people better even than Paul knows them—I am convinced that this is not the outcome of their own brains. They are being urged on by some one. There is some one at their backs. This is no revolt of the peasants, organized by the peasants. Princess, you must tell me all you know!”
“I—I,” she stammered, “I know nothing!”