“I know I was blind and foolish,” murmured the Princess. “I could not believe my brother capable of such cruelty.”
“Your brother is capable of anything, of everything,” said Corsini. “Listen! I will tell you all that has happened to-night. Please understand that Count Golitzine has got him in the hollow of his hand.”
In a few brief words, he recounted all that he had overheard at the villa of Madame Quéro, Zouroff’s confession that for his own purposes he had removed the beautiful singer.
“To-morrow, or the day after, he will be on his way to Siberia,” concluded Corsini, with a pardonable exultation. “He doomed me to death because he found me in his way; he has murdered his old sweetheart from the sheer lust of revenge. You, out of that same spirit of vengeance, he would have condemned to a long exile. I trust, Princess, you will not mourn over the well-deserved fate of such a worthless brother.”
“No,” she said in a resolute voice, “I will not mourn over him. His outrage on me quenches the last spark of affection I ever entertained for him.”
The conversation was concluded. Corsini rose, and yet he still lingered. Something alluring in the sweet face of the Princess still drew him. But could he dare? There was a softness in her gaze, something inviting in her demeanour.
Youth was calling to youth. Suddenly he leaned over and pressed his lips on hers. They were met by an answering pressure.
“I love you, I love you, oh, I cannot tell you how much,” he murmured brokenly. “I have loved you ever since the night when you passed me in Dean Street and wanted to throw me coppers when I was playing in the gutter, and your imperious brother forbade you. I have loved you ever since that moment.”
And Nada murmured softly, “I love you, too. I cannot date it back to that night. I think it was when you came to play for us at the Embassy, in London. But it does not matter, dear Nello. We have both saved each other.”
“Yes, we have saved each other,” was Corsini’s answer. He left the white-capped nurse in the corner, the still tearful Katerina. What did he reck of these? Had not his beautiful Princess avowed her love with that warm kiss on his lips? What did anything else in the world matter?