“Yes,” he replied, “but you have not answered my most important question: ‘Do you love Nicol Patoff?’ I have no right to ask you, but do you?”
He seemed terribly in earnest, and I recoiled a step from him as I answered: “No! I esteemed him as a friend, nothing more; and since I have known he was in danger I have felt a great interest in him; but love him—marry him—I couldn’t. I have answered you, and now tell me, can you shield him if he is found?”
“I think I can,” was his reply.
“And will you?”
“I will.”
“And will you tell him that I have not forgotten him?”
“I will,” were the replies and answers which followed rapidly as we walked side by side to the street, where I gave him my hand and said: “We shall certainly leave in two or three days, and I may not see you again. I must thank you for all the kindness you have shown us, helping us over rough places and in many ways, but most I thank you for Chance, who has been invaluable at times.”
He was still holding my hand and looking at me as if there was something he wished to say and was struggling to keep back. Whatever it was he did not say it, but, dropping my hand quickly, hailed a drosky, into which he put me, and, with a simple “Good-by,” turned back to his house. I made no explanation to anyone as to where I had been. I was too tired; my head ached, and I did not wish for any dinner, I said, and went to bed early, deciding to leave St. Petersburg as soon as possible. With a woman’s instinct I felt tolerably sure of the nature of M. Seguin’s feeling for me, but could not analyze my feelings for him. He both fascinated and repelled me. I liked him and feared him, for something in his personality always influenced me more than I cared to be influenced, and I wished to get away from it.
“We will have just one more day of looking around and then let’s go,” I said, at breakfast, to my friends, who acquiesced readily, for they longed for new scenes.
St. Petersburg was monotonous and vexatious. They had shown their passports and sworn to their nationality and ages and occupations until they were tired of it, and were quite ready to leave.