“I have been with the President and the Secretary of State, and it is upon your affairs that we met.”
Volkonsky shifted uneasily in his chair. These terrible Americans. They outraged all diplomacy.
“And may I ask the result of that conference?” he inquired.
“Certainly. That if you will agree to go quietly, you may.”
Volkonsky drew himself up. Pembroke remembered a similar gesture and attitude in a country road, some years before.
“And if I decline?”
Pembroke nodded gravely.
“Then the President, through the State Department will feel compelled to notify your government of the correspondence of yours which came into the hands of the Department, and was upon my request presented to the Foreign Affairs sub-committee. This is enough, you understand, for your recall, and perhaps dismissal. But I thought proper to inform the President of what I knew personally regarding you—and I also informed him that your wife was entitled to some consideration of which you were totally unworthy. So you had best take advantage of the President’s leniency in allowing you to go, without a peremptory demand for your recall.”
“You perhaps have gone too fast,” answered Volkonsky in a quiet voice—for the whole conversation had been conducted in a conversational key. “You are no doubt aware that the United States Government is bound by some obligations to the Government of the Czar, owing to the stand taken by Russia during your civil war, when you, Mr. Pembroke, were in rebellion. If you will remember, when there seemed a strong probability that the Confederate government would be recognized by England and France, the Czar signified, that if such a contingency arose, he would be prepared to render the United States active help. As a guarantee, you will recollect the appearance of a small Russian fleet off the Pacific Coast. Now, upon the first occasion that a member of the royal family comes to the United States, to have a diplomatic scandal—to dismiss the Russian Minister the day after the Grand Duke’s arrival—when arrangements are made for the presentations, and certain formal entertainments—will certainly be most awkward, and I may say, embarrassing, for his royal highness as well as the Russian Government.”
“Quite true,” answered Pembroke. “This phase of the question was discussed fully by the Secretary of State, who was present at the interview with the President. He mentioned that the strongest proof of friendship this Government could give the Russian Government would be for the Secretary to state privately to the Grand Duke how matters stand, and to offer, on his account, to permit your presence temporarily in Washington.”