"Of course, dear boy. Ihnasko, you meanwhile can be getting the card-table ready. Dear me! How long it is since I had a game of ombre! Never since the little dark duchess and the general's wife have been unable to mount the stairs. Then put out tea and cakes. Now some logs on the fire. We will see who will be the first to get sleepy when once we have warmed to our game. I know I shall not!"
Meanwhile Ivan began speaking in French to his wife, constraining his face to wear as calm an expression as though he were merely explaining whereabouts in his room she would find the cards.
"I am lost. The insurrection which has broken out to-day, and which, I believe, is already quelled, was secretly instigated by me. Prince Trubetzkoi was the nominal Dictator; in reality it was I. I was the guiding hand, he only the mask. Trubetzkoi has already washed his hands of it; he has been to the commander-in-chief and taken the oath of allegiance to the Czar. This leaves me alone in the post of danger. The leadership falls upon me. Nor would I put it back upon his shoulders. The poor fellow has a young wife who is devotedly fond of him. That I have taken no part in to-day's revolt helps me not in the slightest, for, all the same, I was Dictator. If the papers connected with this movement are discovered I am irrevocably lost, and with me thousands of the highest in the land whose names are inscribed in a book we call 'the green book.' This book must be destroyed!"
"Will you intrust that to me?"
"To whom else? All that I have I possess in common with you. My name, my wealth, my rank are yours; my honor, too, is yours. All this is now at stake; and you can help me—none other."
"Command what shall I do."
"Oh, do not speak so! It is not command, but entreaty. For what I now ask of you I crave as ardently as a man craves forgiveness from his Maker for his sins. That book is in Zeneida Ilmarinen's keeping."
"Ah!"
"I know that you hate her; but without reason, I swear to you! But of what value is the oath of a desperate man? No feeling has ever bound me to that lady that could in any way hurt your woman's pride. It was another tie—far more dangerous to me—but innocuous to you. But you do not believe me. Nor do I ask it. What I do implore is that in this hour of supreme danger you should show yourself magnanimous. If you have had cause of anger against me, forget it for the sake of the honor of the Ghedimin escutcheon, and lose no time in going to Fräulein Ilmarinen's house with this key, which unlocks the hiding-place. I well know the sacrifice I ask of you in begging you to cross that threshold. But I dare not go myself, for were I to be seen in the vicinity of that house I should be at once arrested. But no one will suspect you. See Fräulein Ilmarinen without delay, and tell her of the imminence of the danger, of which she may know nothing. She may have been informed, and, in that case, would certainly have destroyed 'the green book' were it not locked away in a place of safety, only to be broken open with great strength and much loss of time. Throw the book on the fire, and wait until you have seen it reduced to ashes; then hasten back to rescue me from my desperate situation!"
"I will act as beseems a Princess Ghedimin."