“If it affected myself alone, I would reveal it to you without a moment’s hesitation, but it concerns others. No, if my assurance is not enough for you, you must continue to regard me as an adventuress, a spy—what you will—and I must endure it.” She folded her hands in her lap with sorrowful dignity, but her lips were quivering, and a tear rolled slowly down her face.
“Oh, don’t cry!” said Zoe hastily, with the modern woman’s horror of tears. “Of course you can have your meals with us, and we’ll travel together if you really want it. Only I can’t say that you belong to us if I’m asked.”
“You will not be asked. A family party will pass unquestioned. It is two ladies alone who would attract attention. Oh, I am so glad!” she cried, abandoning disguise, and drying her eyes vigorously. “Evdotia Vladimirovna—my aunt, I mean—is so frightened, and I have been obliged to encourage her, and I was so frightened myself. Every one might be a spy or a secret agent. Then I saw the luggage with the name ‘Smith,’ and I saw you and your brother, and your faces looked trustworthy, and I thought we should be safe with you. I shall never forget this service, you may be sure,” with a return to stateliness, as she rose and departed.
“I feel a regular fool!” said Zoe viciously to herself. “But, after all, she did play fair. If she had attacked Maurice instead of me, she wouldn’t have had a quarter of the trouble.”
“I have scraped acquaintance with your startling-eyed friend,” said Maurice, coming in. “He is not a King’s messenger, you will be interested to hear, but an Indian officer going back after his leave. He’s to stay a week or two with a friend who’s in the Emathian Gendarmerie, and his name’s Wylie.”
“Well, I told you nearly as much about him simply from inference. Did you hear anything about Miss Smith?”
“Oh, one fat old chap, who seems to come this way about once a week and knows all the officials, was very busy hinting that he had it from the sleeping-car attendant that she was somebody very big travelling incog.”
“A Princess running away from school, I should think!” murmured Zoe. “Well, to-morrow morning either she will sink in the general estimation or we shall go up, for we are to breakfast together.”
“You don’t mean to say that you have taken her up after all?” cried Maurice. “Well, don’t say it was my doing.” But his warning tone was not wholly devoid of satisfaction.