When was he not ready to do it? It was the reason the brutal pair loved each other so well that there was nothing so mad devised by the one that the other was not ready to join in.
Song followed the carousal. Daimona began the Knife Song, and Araktseieff joined in the chorus.
For the sweetest of all the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge is when a smooth courtier, whose wont is to flatter, to bow, and to scrape, in the privacy of his chamber can tune up a revolutionary song, and blacken his sovereign and fellow-courtiers to his heart's content.
"Let's have it over again! Where's a glass?" He always dashed his empty glasses against the wall. But instead of the glass, Schinko brought on his silver salver a letter, which a mounted messenger had just delivered.
Araktseieff at once knew the handwriting on the cover. Releasing himself from Daimona's arms, he sprang up from the divan, and, hastily wiping his mouth, pressed the letter to his lips and forehead; then said, in a hollow voice:
"What do you want with scissors? Break it open with your fingers."
"Give me the scissors when I ask for them!" shouted he, angrily, and snatched roughly at the pair hanging from Daimona's girdle. And as with trembling hand he cut the seal, he said, feverishly, "One does not break the Czar's seal."
"The Czar's seal?" repeated Daimona, astounded.
It did not take Araktseieff long to read his letter. Besides the signature were two words only—"Come back!"