"I wonder where he is—Cravatz, I mean?" he slowly said.
"Not too near, but near enough to keep in touch with your movements, you may depend. At Gretz, I daresay."
Felix pondered. "What I have to do is to leave the house in safety with these papers. The clerk must be detained until I have started."
"Yes," said Vronsky, after a moment's thought. "I will have him in to take down a typed statement from my dictation. Summon him, and let Hutin come with him—a man I thoroughly trust. I will keep them until you are an hour upon your journey. By that time you will be out of reach. But, Felix, will it not be more prudent for you to remain at Nicolashof to-night? Not to return?"
"Oh, no," said Felix, impatiently. "What good would it do to waylay me on the way back? I shall not then have the thing they want. And besides, who is to do it? Even if this man Streloff is a traitor—and we have no proof that he is—what could he do against me? I am a match for any two of them, and so far as we know, he has no accomplices. No fear! He is here to steal if he can, but not to fight. Fighting is not in the line of the Brotherhood. Assassination is safer, far." He spoke with the slow, concentrated bitterness which came into his voice whenever he thought of the toils in which he had been caught in his hot youth.
"Give me the papers, little father," he said, "and I will put them in the inner pocket that is upon my shirt, and button my coat and vest over them. They will be safe enough then. There! That is all right. Shall I summon Streloff and Hutin?"
Vronsky sighed. "I suppose so. Heaven bless you, little son." He paused a long minute, and then added, while the blood rose under his olive cheek, "Make my compliments to Nadia Stepanovna."
Felix looked at him with sudden sympathy, made a movement to speak, but thought better of it. "I will do so, most certainly," he said, very gently. He bent over Vronsky and kissed him, gave him a drink of iced lemonade, and with a wave of his hand, bright and full of confidence, he left the room. Crossing a wide passage he pushed open a door on the other side and entered an office where two or three clerks sat busy.
"Streloff!" he cried. There was no reply. "Hutin, where is Streloff?"
"The master sent him to carry a message to the mines, sir."