“Madame,” I cried, springing to my feet in my turn, “you mistake me. I am devoted to you, and will do anything to help you. I expressed myself clumsily, but I meant to say that if I were more like you I would change places with you. As it is, the plan is hopeless. But we will think of something else. God is not always on the side of the mighty.”
As I spoke, I put my arms round madame and kissed her affectionately. The revulsion of feeling produced in her mind by my words and actions broke the intense strain under which she had labored, and she embraced me convulsively, a perfect storm of sobs shaking her frame. I strove as best I could with my own emotion and let madame cry on. I knew it would do her good. Presently she grew calmer, and after a while her sobs ceased altogether.
“I am better now,” she said. “I feel as if a great cloud were rolled from my brain. I can think and plan once more. My mother, they say, had the courage of a martyr. If I fall, my enemies shall not gloat over my cowardice. Suppose we open the doors again. It is not wise to show a spy that we fear him.”
I had just opened the door, and put the portière into its usual position, when Trischl, the German nurse, came to see her mistress. She walked into the room without invitation, but preserved nevertheless her usual respectful demeanor. “I believe madame needs friends,” she said in a low, cautious voice. “I have seen that which makes me think so. Madame has been good to me. If she will not be angry at my presumption, I will be her faithful helper.”
As Trischl ceased speaking, she looked at her mistress anxiously, as if half afraid of reproof. But of that she met none, and the friendly clasp of the hand with which madame tried to show her appreciation of the risk the faithful creature was running in offering to help a suspect was to her a seal of allegiance. For a little while we deliberated together, forming and rejecting one plan after another. Presently an unusually vigorous peal at the visitor’s bell made itself heard even here, where the sonorous reverberations seldom penetrated. We all turned pale and the same unspoken question was in all our eyes: “Is the enemy already upon us? Is it too late to escape?” Even evils are welcomed at times, when they come in the place of a still more dreaded one, and we were all positively relieved when a footman presently came to ask madame if she would see Count Karenieff in the salon.
“Tell him I will see him immediately,” said madame. Instinctively both Trischl and I knew what should be done, and we hastened to bathe madame’s face with eau-de-cologne, to brush her hair, to alter her toilet a little, and to give to her face the appearance of quiet composure by means of a little powder and rouge. The results were arrived at quickly. The effect was good, and madame’s bearing and appearance, as she went down to interview her mortal enemy, were the reverse of those of a betrayed and despairing woman, who anticipated a horrible fate in the near future.
“Temporize with him,” I had counseled while hurriedly assisting with her toilet. “Feign ignorance of his cruel intentions. If he asks you again to marry him, do not insult him, but seem as if you had altered your opinion of him. Ask him to give you a day to deliberate. It would be so much time gained for us.”
The nod of comprehension with which she left us showed that she considered my advice to be good, and I felt more hopeful of the result of the interview between the courageous woman and the dastardly man than I could have believed possible half an hour before.
“And now,” said Trischl, “there is no time to be lost. There are spies in the house. But we can be as clever as spies, if we like, and we must prepare things for madame’s departure as soon as possible. All her jewelry must be hidden somehow, so that she can easily carry it away.”
I felt that Trischl was right, and that a desperate emergency like this was not the time to stand on ceremony. Fifteen minutes later a strange face peeped in at the open door for a moment. We were both diligently employed. To all appearances we were both innocently employed. Trischl was quilting some silk, of which she purposed making a kind of cuff, to be tied above the elbows. I was indulging in the prosaic occupation of mending a pair of corsets. Could the fellow who had glanced at us have seen that a pile of jewelry lay underneath the aprons Trischl and I had donned, he would perhaps have been slightly surprised. Had he had a suspicion that I had just stitched a parure of diamonds into the corset, and that Trischl was quilting the silk over a beautiful pearl necklace, he might perhaps have thought it advisable to report the occurrence to his superiors. As it was, he passed on, in blissful ignorance of our real occupation, and it was certainly not our business to enlighten him.