“Demented, or that way inclined?”
“As sane as women in general.”
“Subject to some hereditary taint? Epileptic or the like?”
“As sound in physique as yourself.”
“Then by all that’s holy!” cried Wilfrid, in a paroxysm of perplexity, “explain why a lady of princely birth, beautiful, and rich, can lack suitors among her own nation? Why must a foreigner from distant England play the lover?”
“Because there is no one in St. Petersburg bold enough to take upon himself that rôle, since discovery means certain death to the lover, death perhaps to her.”
“Death!” queried Wilfrid, somewhat startled at the word.
“At the hands of the State.”
“Ah!” said Wilfrid, beginning to receive a glimmer of light. “She is a lady important politically?”
“Very much so,” replied the diplomatist with a look that confirmed his statement.