With a quick movement he placed his arm around her waist, and grasping her tightly, pressed her against his breast, adding, “Come, I must have a kiss!”
Before she could evade him, she felt his hot breath upon her face, and his lips pressed her soft, dimpled cheek. Trembling with fear and flushed with indignation, she struggled and succeeded in freeing herself from his hateful clutches. But she did not upbraid him, although her face became more woeful than before.
Frowning, he regarded her with an expression of displeasure, saying: “The wife and child of a political exile classed among dangerous Nihilists can expect no relief from His Majesty’s private purse.”
“It is to your sympathy that I appeal,” Mascha exclaimed imploringly. “Although my people and yours are of different creed, we all adore the same Father, our Tzar.”
“And Isaac Prèhznev was sent to Siberia by étape for conspiring against his life! Curious adoration, eh?”
“It’s false!” she cried hotly. “He was wrongly accused; denounced by some unknown enemy, and sent straight to Irkutsk without any chance of defence.”
“Ha! ha! my pretty champion. So that is the way you speak of the justice of His Majesty! Your words betray you: they show that you, too, have become imbued with the revolutionary teaching of the propaganda.”
Mascha saw she had been trapped. In a moment she knew that he suspected her of Nihilistic tendencies.
Martianoff noticed her alarm, and said: “You need not fear. I don’t intend that you should share your father’s fate. You are too pretty for that.”
“Have you decided to give me food?” she demanded, her brows knit in displeasure.