“Her name, man; her name!” I cried somewhat impatiently.
“She is known under several,” he answered a trifle sulkily. “I believe her real name is Anna Petrovna—”
That conveyed little; it is as common a name in Russia as “Ann Smith” would be in England, and therefore doubtless a useful alias.
“But she has others, including two, what is it you call them—neck names?”
“Nicknames; well, go on.”
“In Russia those who know her often speak of her by one or the other,—‘La Mort,’ or ‘La Vie,’ it is safer there to use a pseudonym. ‘La Mort’ because they say,—they are superstitious fools,—that wherever she goes, death follows, or goes before; and ‘La Vie’ because of her courage, her resource, her enthusiasm, her so-inspiring personality. Those who know, and therefore love her most, call her that. But, as I have said, she has many names, an English one among them; I have heard it, but I cannot recall it. That is one of my present troubles.”
“Was it ‘Anne Pendennis,’ or anything like that?” I asked, huskily.
“Ach, that is it; you know her, then?”
“Yes, I know her; though I had thought her an English woman.”