“Your Majesty honors me by this visit,” I said gravely, “but if I had been advised of your coming I should have been better prepared.”
“Doubtless,” the czar replied dryly, “but it was for that reason that I chose to come unannounced, M. le Maréchal. M. de Lambert, be kind enough to remain where you are,” he added sharply.
M. de Lambert had made an effort to leave the room to warn Najine, but at the czar’s words he paused, and stood haughtily with his back against the door, and I saw the fire of determination in his brown eyes as he looked back defiantly at the autocrat. I drew forward the best chair in the room.
“Your Majesty will be seated,” I said courteously. “I am indeed unprepared, but the best that the house affords is at the service of the czar.”
“Pshaw, M. l’Ambassadeur!” Peter exclaimed with his usual frankness, “you know that I do not come to pay you a formal visit at night and almost unattended. The greatest courtesy that you can show me is to reply to my questions without prevarication. You have one visitor here already; who is she?”
His question was abrupt, but I had the advantage of being in a measure prepared for it and remained undisturbed.
“I do not understand your Majesty,” I replied calmly; “I have no visitors.”
The czar looked at me with passionate scorn, his great figure towering in the dimly lighted room.
“Who was the woman who went out that door as I entered the other?” he demanded sternly, pointing his finger at the door against which M. de Lambert had set his back.
“Madame de Brousson,” I replied promptly, with some relief that I could tell half the truth.