Then he spoke of Katy particularly, saying:
“Under my woman’s dress a man’s heart was beating, and I was not insensible to the loveliness of your niece. She attracted me the moment I saw her in the train, and the attraction grew until I think I was as much in love with her as a man ever is with a pure, innocent girl, and my love was intensified from the fact that I had to conceal its nature. It was not Sophie who kissed her, but Ivan, the man who longed to take her in his arms, and who sees her now shrinking from me as if she half divined the truth. Did she, I wonder, and is there in her heart anything which responds to my love? I am a Russian, but I can live in America, and conform to American customs. I am a prisoner, but that does not count. There are many men here who stood higher in the social world than I did. Four years—the term for which I am banished—pass quickly, and, when I am free, I shall come to America, if Katy gives me the least encouragement to do so. She may not care to write to me, as other eyes than mine would see her letter, but tell her to write to mother a friendly letter, making no mention of what I have written. I shall take it as an answer in the affirmative, and nothing in Siberia can trouble me again. By the way, you have some old friends here—Ursula and her nephew, Carl, who, I imagine, is naturally a hard ticket. But he is doing his best as a farmer, and will be quite a respected citizen in time. Mother joins me in love to you all, and says tell you that old Drusa is with us, and we are not very unhappy. She knows what I have written, and will look anxiously for Katy’s letter. God bless you all!
Ivan Scholaskie.
“I heard, from Sophie, that you called on my grandmother in London, and that she gave you her opinion of myself quite freely. She is a holy terror!”
This letter Katy read several times, but it was some days before I spoke of it to her, and asked if she intended writing to Madame Scholaskie. For some moments she made no reply, and when, at last, she did, her voice was very low and her face flushed, as if she were ashamed.
“To write to madame will be encouraging Ivan, and I don’t know as I ought to do that, I have such peculiar feelings with regard to him. I loved Sophie as I have never loved any other girl, and yet there was always something queer about it; and, when I knew she was Ivan, I recoiled from her for a while. I have never known Ivan as a man; never seen him in a man’s clothes. If I had, I should know better what to do. I must think.”
She took a week to think, and then one day surprised me with a letter she had written to Madame Scholaskie. It was very short, very commonplace, I thought, and had in it no mention of Ivan, except at the last, when she wrote:
“Please remember us all to your son. We are glad he finds Siberia endurable.”
I thought it very cold, but it was a letter, and would answer Ivan’s question. For three days it lay upon the library table, directed and stamped, and then one morning I missed it as I came to breakfast after the postman’s call, and Katy said to me: “I have committed myself. The letter has gone, but may never reach its destination.”
Weeks passed, and months, and no answer came to Katy’s letter. Her face wore a look of disappointment, but she never mentioned Russia voluntarily. Jack, on the contrary, was never tired of airing his exploits, and telling of Ivan’s arrest in a woman’s clothes, and what he said to the gendarme in Ivan’s defense; and, when these topics failed, Chance was a fertile theme. Unknown to any of us, he wrote to M. Seguin, and received an answer, written, I think, as much for my benefit as for Jack’s. There was a long account of Chance and his doings, which pleased Jack.