"He refuses to be your representative. He told me to find some one else. He has some ideas of his own that...."
And he hesitates to express these ideas. He stops, in order not to say anything which the Prince ought not to hear from his lips: and he accepts as a blessing the silence of amazement which comes between them; he is afraid to let the Prince recover from the astonishment with which this news has overwhelmed him.
As he starts to go away, he proposes something which seems to him a way out.
"Does your Highness want me to call Don Atilio? He will surely come. Perhaps the two of you talking together...."
And he goes away in search of Castro, while Michael Fedor once more becomes motionless in his seat, quite unable to comprehend the situation.
* * * * * * *
The Prince saw Castro standing by the little table close to his chair, with a certain appearance of haste in his look and bearing, like a man who is facing a difficult situation, and anxious to get out of it as soon as possible.
The Prince invited him to take the nearest seat, but Castro consented only to sit down lightly on the arm of the chair, to indicate his desire that the interview be brief. Besides, he spoke first, bluntly expressing his thoughts, without any preamble.
"The Colonel has doubtless told you my reply. I can't. You know very well that I am your friend: you even do me the honor of recognizing me as a relative; I owe you a great deal; but what you ask me now ... no! It is a piece of foolishness, madness. It all had to end like this! There was no other way out of it. I had a presentiment of it some time ago. Perhaps you were right when you talked about women as you did, and about the necessity of being their enemies—if such a thing is possible. But it doesn't do any good to bring up the past: You are no longer the Lubimoff who said those incoherent things. As for me I am mad, I'll grant you that: but you are even more so than I: and for that reason I can't be with you."
Michael looked at him fixedly, without abandoning his silent immobility, waiting for him to go on.