"My father had kept aloof from the disturbance. It was none of his business. He sat on his horse and quietly laughed at the whole transaction. He had become very Russian in a good many ways, and he certainly knew what Cossacks were, and that any protest from him would only be useless. It was simply a case of the biter bit. He joined the party as they galloped on to make up for lost time.
"As for the women, it was now nothing to them that their captors had changed. Early in the morning their village had been pillaged and their defenders slain. It was all one to them, now. Slavery awaited them wherever they went. So they sat their horses with their usual ease, veiled their faces, and resigned themselves to their fate. But as the afternoon wore on, the wily captain began to think that my father would certainly see through the marauding escapade of his, and that it would be unpleasant to hear about it again from the authorities, and so he cast about him for the easiest way to deceive or propitiate him. That evening, as my father was sitting in his kibitka, the curtain was raised and the captain smilingly led in one of the captive slaves—a woman of extraordinary beauty. And who do you think she was?"
Margaret turned pale. She grasped Geoffrey's arm, as her quick intelligence divined what was coming.
"No, no," she said. "You are not going to tell me that?"
"Yes," said Geoffrey with a pinched expression on his face. "That is just what I am going to tell you. That poor slave—that ignorant and beautiful savage was my mother."
Margaret was thunderstruck. She did not comprehend how things stood, but with a ready solicitude for him in a time of pain, she passed her hand through his arm and drew herself closer to him, as they walked along.
As for Maurice, he ground his teeth as he witnessed Margaret's loving solicitude. It was a relief to him to rasp out his dislike for Geoffrey under his breath. "I always knew he was a wolf," he muttered to himself.
"You will see now," continued Geoffrey, "why I preferred not to be known in this country. To be one of a family with a title in it did not compensate me for being a thorough savage on my mother's side.
"But I will continue my story. The beauty of the woman attracted my father. He spoke to her kindly in her own language and made her partake of his dinner with him. He thought that in any case he could save her from being sold into slavery by the Cossacks.
"These wild half-brothers of mine took it as a matter of course that my father would be pleased with his acquisition, but they suggested vodki and got it—so that my mother was in reality purchased from them for a few bottles of whisky.