She looked at me anxiously, the danger of my situation seeming to have surmounted her first embarrassment, so that she spoke to and regarded me as an old friend rather than a new admirer.
“A packet, M. de Brousson,” she said thoughtfully; “it may be that I know something of it,” and she questioned me about its size and appearance, listening attentively to my description.
“That packet only left this house an hour since,” she said. “I was in attendance upon my uncle, and saw him give it to a dwarf just as I was leaving the room.”
I questioned her eagerly, and was soon assured that the dwarf was none other than the eavesdropper Homyak, and my heart sank as I divined the probable destination of the czarevna’s packet, and pictured her anger and consternation; for of course it would reach the hands of the Czarina Natalia.
While Zénaïde talked to me about the dwarf, Mademoiselle Eudoxie hovered at the door of the apartment like a frightened mother bird trying to guard the young ones from the marauder; and as soon as there was a pause, she recurred to her first exclamation.
“We must get him out, Zénaïde!” she said, wringing her hands; “we must get him out at once!”
“Is there any reason to prevent me from going directly down the stairs and out, the way I did the other evening?” I asked.
“Many reasons,” Zénaïde answered quietly. “You are unarmed, and you would never reach the gate of the courtyard.”
I began to share mademoiselle’s evident anxiety. We all three gazed at each other in perplexity, only Zénaïde’s face expressed a keen thoughtfulness that reassured me. I felt that she had all a woman’s delicate intuition and a lively intelligence.
“There is only one way,” she said at last, glancing with a smile from Mademoiselle Eudoxie’s tall, angular form to mine; “it is fortunate that mademoiselle is so tall.”