Collecting my thoughts, I slowly smoothed out the crumpled paper, and suppressed a start with an effort when I saw Catherine Shavronsky’s letter to me that I had left in my own lodgings. The czar’s eyes were searching my face, but I lifted my brows with assumed surprise and looked at him with composure.
“It is addressed to me,” I said quietly; “but as it has been received by your Majesty, doubtless the explanation would be easier for those who delivered it at the palace.”
Peter was no hair-splitter; he looked at me with scorn. “The letter was on its way to you, M. de Brousson,” he said sharply; “the fac-simile of it was delivered to you, but this is the original. Am I to understand that I have a traitor in Mentchikof’s household, that my affairs are betrayed to the King of France?”
I drew myself up haughtily, and looked the czar straight in the eye.
“Your Majesty forgets that you address a marshal of France,” I replied coldly; “a soldier cannot descend to the level of a spy. Any man but the czar would answer for those words at the point of the sword.”
His cheek flushed darkly, but he was not without generosity. “High words, Maréchal de Brousson,” he said impatiently; “but I did not accuse you, but—” he hesitated and then went on frankly, “I accused Catherine Shavronsky.”
I was delicately placed and required patience. “Your Majesty,” I replied calmly, “I have ever regarded Mademoiselle Catherine as a devoted subject of the czar.”
He took two turns across the gallery, his face working as it did at times, and his eyes on the ground. Then he faced me, and I saw that he was more composed.
“M. de Brousson,” he said hoarsely, “I would send her to a nunnery to-morrow, I would send her to Archangel, if I believed what they would have me believe of that letter. If she writes these notes to you, it will be well to warn her that she does so at her peril. These women think that because they are beautiful, Peter is too great a fool to give them their deserts, but I will tolerate no traitor, petticoated or not, about my person. I will have satisfaction!”
He stood there looking at me like a thunder-cloud, his great figure towering in the poorly lighted gallery and his large eyes full of passion.