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Princess Zara

Page 18

"Quite true," I admitted.

"Yet, like a craft that has fought its way through stormy seas around

the world, you sit there and try to assure me that you are content to

tie up against a rotting wharf, in an odorous slip, and pass the rest

of your days in inaction. It isn't like you, Dan."

"It looks very enticing to me just now, however."

"The trouble is," he said, "that your American diplomacy and your

amazing politics over here, offer no opportunities to a man of your

talents. You should go against the pricks of European intrigue. You

ought to butt in, as you fellows express it, upon French statecraft

which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of double dealings. You

should try Austrian lies, or German brutalities, or Italian and Spanish

sophistry, or English stupidity. Believe me, one of these would offer

many points of interest which should interest and engage your

attention."

"Why not Russian cruelty?" I asked. "That seems to be the only

important nationality you have omitted."

"Why not?" he repeated after me.

"You seem to have tired of it yourself, Saberevski."

He shrugged his shoulders, leaning back in his chair, and the

suggestion of a shadow passed across his handsome face.

"Dan," he said with an entire change of tone that startled me into

renewed interest, "I haven't any doubt that you have always regarded me

as a queer sort of chap, more or less shrouded by a mystery you could

not fathom. And you were right."

"I have never----" I began. But he raised a hand to arrest me.

"I know it," he said. "You do not need to assure me of that. You are

too much of a man, and your character is too broad and deep, for you

ever to attempt an intimacy which was not invited. But it is my

pleasure just now, old man, to give you a little bit of my history. It

may interest you. And it may lead to a change in your views; not

regarding you, but in connection with myself. I am a much older man

than you are; fifteen years and more, I should say. All my life, up to

the time we last parted, has been passed in the personal service of his

majesty, the czar. I have been as close to him as any man can ever

obtain, and I am probably the only one who has enjoyed his confidence

to the extent of retaining it in the face of studied opposition on the

part of the greatest nobles of the empire. But I have retained it, Dan,

and to such an extent that I suppose myself to be the only man living

to-day, against whom Alexander would not permit himself to be

influenced. There is a reason for it and a good one, but I need not go

into that."

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