But there was a harder battle in store for her than the fight she fought daily with herself, and she was obliged to face it when she was weakest. The news had just reached her through a German newspaper of Caerleon’s initiation of the temperance legislation which she had pressed upon him, and it recalled to her mind his forecast of the difficulties of the work, and the appeal he had made to her to help him in it. Then she had received a letter from her godmother, overflowing with kindness, but containing a little gentle chiding.
“Why should you not be more frank with me, my child?” the Princess wrote. “Surely you know that if in any way I could help you, it would be my delight to do so, and yet you leave me to receive through a stranger an appeal on your behalf. I had a visitor this morning in the shape of Madame Bourenine, whom you know by name as the confidante of the Empress. She said that she had come to talk to me about the love-affair of Nadia Mikhailovna, but she mentioned no other names. Nor did I, for I knew none. After some conversation leading to nothing in particular, she inquired at last whether, if the obstacles to your marriage could be removed, I should be willing to give it my sanction. Knowing only that you had felt it your duty to refuse your lover for some reason with which I was not acquainted, what could I say but that if you thought it right to marry him I should be delighted to help you in any way I could? After receiving this answer, she left me, apparently satisfied. But, my child, have I deserved to be treated in such a way? Why should Madame Bourenine know more of your affairs than I? I do not ask for your confidence if you feel it right to withhold it, but I pray you to understand that no one on earth can desire your happiness and your best good more than I. I commit you to God’s keeping, dear child.”
After receiving this letter Nadia started on one of her mountain expeditions with her mind in a whirl. Who could the persons be that were interesting themselves in the state of affairs between her and Caerleon, and what was their motive for doing so? She puzzled herself with these questions in vain as she walked; but when she returned to the inn at a somewhat earlier hour than usual, she found that they were destined to a speedy solution. Entering the sitting-room, she was surprised to see a stranger talking to her parents,—a smooth and polished gentleman, with a highly waxed moustache. A conviction that she had seen him somewhere before came over her as she paused just inside the door; but she could not at the moment identify him with any one she knew.
“And this is mademoiselle!” said the stranger, an almost imperceptible smile curling the ends of his moustache as he saw her standing erect and astonished in the doorway, with her plain tweed dress damp and muddy, and her hair blown about by the wind.
“Yes, M. le Prince, it is my daughter,” said Madame O’Malachy, and Nadia noticed a repressed excitement in her manner. “Nadia, Vladimir Alexandrovitch has been so good as to pay us a visit here on his return journey from Czarigrad to Pavelsburg, entirely on your account.”
“Mademoiselle and I are not wholly unknown to each other,” said the visitor. “At one time I had the felicity of meeting her tolerably often at my sister-in-law’s house. If she does me the honour to recollect me, she may remember that even in those days I ventured to prophesy that she would be a beautiful woman; but I was not happy enough to discern that her beaux yeux would exercise an influence on the history of Europe.”
Nadia’s brow grew stormy. She had now a very clear recollection of the elegant young man who had been wont to torment with compliments and caresses the shy, passionate little girl who followed his sister-in-law wherever she went, and also of her relief when circumstances had removed him from her neighbourhood. There was no very close intercourse nowadays between Princess Soudaroff and her brother-in-law, although the relations between them were perfectly friendly. The present Prince was not a member of the Cercle Evangélique.
“I fear I am an unfortunate messenger,” he went on, with a covert smile as he noticed the change in Nadia’s expression. “I have prejudiced mademoiselle against me already. But I would ask her to believe that I am here purely in the hope of being able to render some service to her and to the gentleman who is so happy as to possess her heart.”
“How dare you say that?” cried Nadia, angrily.
“I beg your pardon, mademoiselle. I remember that in the old days you used to prefer plain speaking to polite circumlocutions, and as only your own family are present, I have ventured to come to the point at once. It cannot, surely, be a secret to your respected parents that, with a generosity which does you infinite credit, you have declined the addresses of the person who is at present in possession of the throne of Thracia, for fear lest a marriage with you should endanger his future career?”