“The Foreign Office is a beast!” said Olivia. “I’d like to tell them what I think of them.”
“Do,” said he with a laugh, “but don’t tell anybody else.”
She believed him. He breathed again. The difficulty was over for the present. Meanwhile he called himself a fool for not having given her this simple explanation months ago. Why had he racked his conscience with the outrageous fiction of the Vronskys?
About this time, too, in her innocence, she raised the question of his technical nationality. It was absurd for him to continue to be a Russian subject. A son of English parents, surely he could easily be naturalized. He groaned inwardly at this fresh complication, and cursed the name of Triona. He put her off with vague intentions. One of these days . . . there was no great hurry. She persisted.
“It’s so unlike you,” she declared, uncomprehending. “You who do things so swiftly and vividly.”
“I must have some sort of papers establishing my identity,” he explained. “My word won’t do. We must wait till there’s a settled government in Russia to which I can apply. I know it’s an unsatisfactory position for both; but it can’t be helped.” He smiled wearily. “You mustn’t reproach me.”
“Reproach you—my dearest——?”
The idea shocked her. She only had grown impatient of the intangible Russian influences that checked his freedom of action. Sometimes she dreaded them, not knowing how deep or how sinister they might be. Secret agents were sometimes mysteriously assassinated. He laughed at her fears. But what else, she asked herself, could he do but laugh? She was not reassured.
The naturalization question settled for an indefinite time, he felt once more in clear water. Easter came and went.
“If I don’t move about a little, I shall die,” he said.