“No,” said Peter, “I shall not drink to-night.”
Remembrances of the cloudy horrors of the day darkened his face; he glanced round the gaudy room with the restlessness of a creature finding itself suddenly caged.
“I will go into the garden,” he said; then abruptly, “You are a Livonian. Do you know anything of your King—Karl of Sweden?”
He paused in the open window, looking at her keenly, and ready to break into anger at whatever answer she might make.
But Marpha’s simple sweetness was too strong for his suspicious anger; she defeated him by the sheer frankness of her reply.
“I know nothing of him,” she said, “and what can he matter to such as the Czar of Holy Russia?”
Peter glanced at her, baffled; his vanity was soothed by this ignorant creature’s perfect faith; his pride began to rise against this dread and envy of the threatening figure of the unknown young King.
“Yes, I am the Czar,” he said sullenly, “and I can put a million men into the field for his every thousand, and if they are not as good soldiers I can knout them into being so.”
With that he turned into the garden, and his tall figure was immediately lost in the darkness filled with the sound of the waving sumach boughs.
Marpha gazed thoughtfully at the open window; her hands that were white and smooth, but thick and strong, the hands of a peasant, played with her heavy jeweled breastplate.