In their conversation, while he did not speak in so many words of the time she had visited him at his hotel, he let her know that he remembered it, and he quickly realised that the passionate woman who had pleaded with him then was not the stately lady who spoke to him now.
"Every woman is foolish at times," she said. "In hours of loneliness and memory we are the creatures of passing fancies; but they are only passing. I have always to remember that, in spite of the tragic condition of my country, I have my duty to my race and my position."
Later she said: "I wonder if I shall ever wed? Wonder whether duty will clash with my heart to such a degree that I shall go back to my own sphere, or stay here and only remember that I am a woman?"
He wondered what she meant, wondered whether she wished to convey to him that it might be possible for her to forsake all for love.
But something, he could not tell what, made him keep a strong hold upon himself. It had become a settled thought in his mind by this time that at all hazards he must fight against his love for Beatrice Stanmore. To love her would be disloyal to her; it would be wrong. He had no right to think thoughts of love about one who had promised to be the wife of another man.
Yet his heart ached for her. All that was best in him longed for her. Whenever his love for her was strongest, he longed only for the highest in life, even while his conscience condemned him for thinking of her.
Dick paid Olga Petrovic several visits. Nearly always others were there, but he generally managed to be alone with her for a few minutes, and at every visit he knew that she was filling a larger place in his life.
His fear of her was passing away, too, for she was not long in showing an interest in things that lay dear to his heart. She evidenced a great desire to help him in his work; she spoke sympathetically about the conditions under which the toilers of the world laboured. She revealed fine intuitions, too.
"Oh yes," she said on one occasion, "I love your country. It is home—home! I am mad, too, when I think of my insane fancies of a year ago. I can see that I was wrong, wrong, all wrong! Lawlessness, force, anarchy can never bring in the new day of life and love. That can only come by mutual forbearance, by just order, and by righteous discipline. I was mad for a time, I think; but I was mad with a desire to help. Do you know who opened my eyes, Mr. Faversham?"
"Your own heart—your own keen mind," replied Dick.