“We speak of a dangerous man,” she replied, with that shrewdness that had already earned for her Mentchikoff’s respect. “I do not wish to be raised up to be dashed down. He can be cruel, and he has all the power. Let me keep out of the way of Peter Alexievitch.”
“You said that you liked him,” said Mentchikoff sternly; he had been hoping more than he admitted to himself from this second influence on Peter, that was to have been like a doubling of his own.
“I like him, but I am afraid of him,” she answered concisely. “He has many devils. I saw them peep out of his eyes. Keep me for yourself, Danilovitch Mentchikoff, for you are a peaceful man.”
The Prince replied violently: “If you will not please Peter Alexievitch, you shall not please me”—and passing her roughly, followed his master out into the murmuring darkness of the garden.
Marpha colored, and her serene pleasant face was overcast.
She had been quite content with her lazy life of ease and admiration, which had been like Paradise after the hardships of her earlier years, and she was sorry that Mentchikoff, for whom she felt a placid affection, had put her in the Czar’s path, for she was without ambition, fond of ease and comfort, and entirely uninterested in statecraft and politics; she could not write her own name, and was in every way entirely ignorant save in the natural arts of reading men and managing them; she would rather have been left in peace, and this though the dark sad face of Peter attracted her as she had never before been attracted.
With a little sigh she turned to her own apartment to take off the garment whose splendor rather constrained her, and put on the peasant costume that she usually wore.
In the pavilion Peter and Mentchikoff were discussing the coming campaign, the Czar showing a sudden fervent interest in those events that he had refused hitherto to even glance at; he would not drink, but turned half a glass of wine out on the table, and dipping his finger in it, proceeded to draw a rough map of the scene of the King of Sweden’s operations on the green marble.
His knowledge of the country was accurate; he correctly placed Copenhagen, King Frederick at Tönning, Augustus of Saxony falling back before Riga and the victorious forces of Sweden.
Then he drew a swift line through Poland towards Narva.