"Wait one moment, Saberevski. Don't you think that you are getting rather beyond your depth? I appreciate all that you are trying so vainly to tell me. I know of your personal interest in me, and I honor you and thank you for it. But it is not like Alexis Saberevski to hesitate over a statement he has decided to make, and if I am not mistaken you began this discourse with a determination to be frank. Might I suggest that you make yourself more plain?"
"I have been called a diplomat of the first order, Zara," he replied, with a smile, "but your straight-forward methods, and my resolute purpose, make my course of procedure somewhat difficult. I will, however, be entirely frank."
"That is better."
"Zara de Echeveria, Alexis Saberevski informs you now that he knows you to be high in the councils of the nihilists."
Was there a suggestion of pallor for an instant upon the countenance of the princess? Was there a quick but imperceptible intaking of her breath? Was there a deepening in the expression of her matchless eyes, and an imperceptible widening of them, as they dwelt upon her companion? Was there a stiffening of her figure in its attitude of quiet repose, and did her muscles attain a sudden rigidity, induced by that startling announcement? Saberevski could not have answered any one of these questions. So perfectly were the features and the facial expression of Princess Zara under her control that she outwardly betrayed no sign of the effect of the announcement. And yet it might well have affected her most deeply; might have startled her even into a cry of terror; should have filled her with instant fear, because this man who made it was one, who in his former official capacity could have condemned almost any person in Russia to exile by a gesture, or a word. And Zara did not doubt that his official capacity still obtained. She knew him to be an expatriate as she had announced. She understood that for some reason, not apparent, he had become a voluntary exile from his native country and city, and might never again return to the scenes he loved best. But she also knew that he was no less closely in the confidence of the Russian emperor, and could never be any the less inimical to the enemies of the czar. A statement such as he had made, coming from him, charging her with complicity in revolutionary acts which had for their object the assassination of the Russian ruler and his possible successors, contained an implied threat more terrible in its consequences than any other one which could have been made; more terrible to her, personally, than to any other person against whom it might have been made, because she knew by the experiences of one of her girl friends, to what extremities of mental and moral torture a Siberian exile may be condemned.
She made no reply. She remained perfectly motionless and silent, waiting for him to continue.
"You need not deny me, Zara, for I know," he went on presently. "How the knowledge came to me does not matter, and has no connection with this interview. But I know. That knowledge has created the duty which I have come to you to-day to perform. I want you to abandon your present pursuits. Whatever the purpose of your visit to America may be, I beg that you will forego it. I do not seek any confession, or even a statement from you, upon this subject. Indeed I should prefer that you make none. You cannot please me better than by listening to me in silence, so that when I leave you presently, you will know and I will know, that I will have no more knowledge concerning you and your entanglements with those people, than I possessed before I came. I would have it that way. I would have it no other way."
She nodded her head, gazing at him intently, but with that same changeless expression of impersonal interest, as if she were listening to the discussion of a third party who was not known to her save by name.
"Zara," he continued, "you will receive other cards than mine to-day, and you should know that every man or woman who will call upon you in behalf of the nihilists, is marked and known. You cannot engage in the business that brought you here, and afterward return to Russia in safety. The secret police of our empire extends all over the world, and is as efficient in the city of New York, as it is in Moscow or St. Petersburg, so far as its requirements demand. I warn you, not in behalf of your party, the principals of which I despise and abhor; not in behalf of any individual member of that revolutionist sect, but wholly in behalf of Zara de Echeveria, the daughter of my best friend, the offspring of the only woman I ever loved. To-day while I talk to you, I am not Alexis Saberevski the friend of the czar, but I am Alexis Saberevski your friend. I have stepped outside my duty; I have taken it upon myself to come here to perform what may be a disloyal act to my emperor, in order to warn you against a course which can have but one end, and which can bring you to but one fate—Siberia."
He left his chair and stood beside her. He reached down and took one of her hands, pressing it between the palms of both his own.