“Oh, he wished to be rude. I don’t know why, but I am certain it was that. He makes me—I forget the word—quake? quiver?—all over when he comes near.”
“He grues you, does he? So he does me.”
“I am so glad, because it shows it is not a fancy of mine. Do you know what I think it is? Look at him through the leaves of that palm; see how smooth he is, how well-brushed—is not that the phrase? Then think of him as he would look without his beard. I have seen a picture of him when he was much younger in his cousin Sonya’s album, and oh! it was such a cruel face. I call him the Tartar—you know the saying, Grattez le Scythe, et vous trouverez——? It amuses mamma very much, but she told me not to tell papa. He would be displeased.”
“I don’t think I would tell the Grand-Duke either,” suggested Usk, half-pityingly. Could the child be so blind as not to see what the presence of the Scythian Prince at this family gathering portended?
“Oh no, I should not think of it. And besides, when he comes near me, I can never talk at all. I feel like a mouse in a trap, and I can only say yes and no. You know that he married one of my cousins? She died before they had been married a year, and I believe”—her voice dropped, and her eyes sought Usk’s with a haunting horror in them—“that he killed her.”
“Oh no!” Usk felt compelled to say. “Why should he?”
“I don’t mean that he murdered her with a dagger or with poison. I should think it would be enough to kill any one to see that face and that sneer always opposite them. And they wanted her to enter the Orthodox Church, and she refused; and I don’t think he would be very kind if his wishes were opposed, would he? Oh, it was brave of her, poor Leopoldine! I should have surrendered, I know. I should be too frightened to hold out.”
“I say, you know,” said Usk awkwardly, “perhaps you’re misjudging him. He mayn’t be as bad as he looks.”
Helene shook her head. “It is the feeling his presence gives me,” she said. “Now, there is Michael. I dislike him, but I am not afraid of him. He is like a big boy who tortures flies for sport, not thinking. The Grand-Duke Ivan would do it for the sake of cruelty. And there is the Emperor Sigismund. Every one says how hard he is, but he is not cruel. He is always kind to me. He used to call me his little kitten, and I could always persuade him to do what I wanted. That was when I was a little girl, of course.”
Usk was silent, lost in amazement at this new light upon the character of the Hercynian ruler. Helene was looking through a pile of music.