"I do not know," I answered dubiously. "Maria von Spreckeldsen sacrificed me to Herr Sachs: I know that much."
"Maria von Spreckeldsen!" she said contemptuously; and clasping her hands behind her back, like a child saying a puzzling lesson, she came and stood before me. "Do you mean to say—do you really mean to say—that the sentiment between you and Maria von Spreckeldsen could be called love?"
Now, I thought this was very unkind of Mademoiselle Olga, and showed duplicity as well, for she had always professed the deepest sympathy for me in regard to my Maria, and a profound belief in the depth of my feelings.
"Come," said she, blushing, but straightening up her slim young figure, "do you know that when one loves as—as—"
"As you love Count Kourásoff," I said.
She took his picture from about her neck and kissed it for answer. "Very well, then; but men are so dense! You think that I love like that tedious Maria; General Klapka thinks he can persuade me to love him; while Count Loris thinks—I know not what. My heart is a mystery to every one of you, and to myself as well. Look what General Klapka brought me yesterday," she continued, producing from a cabinet a picture of him, elaborately set in a small gold frame. She was clever with her pencil and brush, and she had, with childish revenge, touched it up so that the general, who was anything but handsome, looked even uglier than Nature had made him.
I could not help laughing at the ludicrous effect, and, while she held it off at arm's length, she made a contemptuous face at it, besides several unflattering remarks; but she suddenly threw it down and burst into sobs and tears; "I sometimes wonder that I can laugh, for my heart always aches—always. I feel that Loris Kourásoff stands on the brink of an awful fate. That wretch is capable of anything; he would have him taken out and shot any morning that he discovered we still love each other."
I tried to comfort her, but could not. I too felt a dreadful uncertainty.
"You may tell Count Loris this for me," she said, drying her tears, "that I long to see him, and if I can not see him by lawful means I will see him by unlawful means. I will conspire."
I repeated this imprudent speech to my friend, who sent her in return a stern command to put all thoughts of conspiring for her and for himself out of her head. I found she had arranged in her mind a very plausible plan, by which she was to penetrate to the interior of the fort, and, taking his place, suffer him to escape; but this fine scheme was brought to naught by the count's peremptory orders.