“For the present, I can only urge you to be prudent. One rash act may precipitate you into a still worse dilemma than the present. See this lady for yourself, and see the man who accompanies her. I do not advise you to speak to them, nor even to let them know of your presence here, still less of your intentions. The man, from what you already know of him, is likely to be an unscrupulous fellow, a dangerous enemy to cope with. He—on account of his pupil or niece—has patrons in high place. If he got wind of your designs, he might frustrate them in a manner … that … that you don’t foresee.…” The lawyer paused, and bent his sharp green eyes on Clide with a meaning that was not to be misunderstood.
“You mean that the government would connive at or assist him in some personal violence to me?”
“I mean to advise you honestly. I might put you off with a sham, or lay a trap for you; I should be well paid for it. But I traffic as little as possible in that sort of thing, and never with an English client.” It was impossible to doubt the genuine frankness in this assurance, coupled as it was with the implied admission that the lawyer was less incorruptible to native clients. Clide was convinced the man was dealing fairly by him.
“And when I have seen them both, and thus put a seal on certainty—what next?”
“Wait until the season is over; then follow them to their next destination, out of Russia, and take counsel with a shrewd legal man of the place. My own opinion is that your wisest course would be to do nothing until you can attack the affair in England: the mere fact of being a foreigner puts barriers in the way of the law for helping you anywhere; but, as you value your liberty, don’t interfere with a prima donna who is in favor with the Court of St. Petersburg—it were safer for you to play with fire.”
Clide laid a large fee on the lawyer’s green table, and wished him good morning.
He hesitated as he was stepping into his fly. Should he go to the British Embassy, and lay the whole story before Lord X——, and so place one strong barrier between him and the monstrous possibilities with which the lawyer had threatened him? He stood for a moment with his hand on the door, which Stanton was holding open for him; his forehead had that hard line straight down between the horizontal bars over his eyes that had once so scared Franceline. “To the hotel!” he said, slamming the door, and Stanton jumped up beside the coachman.
They had gone about a hundred yards when the window was pulled down in front, and Clide called out: “To the British Embassy!”
The horse’s head was turned that way. While they were rattling over the stones, Clide was arguing his change of resolution, and trying to justify it. “I will burn my ship and take the consequences. What balderdash he talked about the danger of letting the man know of my intentions! How the deuce could they harm me? If I were a Russian, no doubt; but the government would hardly run their neck into such a noose as assault or imprisonment of a British subject for the sake of a popular prima donna! Pshaw! I was an idiot to mind him.”
The coachman pulled up before the British Embassy. Two private carriages stopped at the same moment, gentlemen alighted from them and ran up the steps. Stanton held the door open for his master, but Clide did not move; he sat with his head bent forward, examining his boots, to all appearance unconscious of his valet’s presence.