"Thank you, princess," he replied, and lighted one. Then he leaned back
in his chair, closed his eyes, and for a time there was utter silence
between these two. The man seemed indeed to have been transported in
thought, to his native environment, not so much by the odor and flavor
of the cigarette he puffed with such calm enjoyment, as by the presence
of this magnificent creature who confronted him so daintily, and who
received him so simply and yet so grandly. "You knew, then, that I was
here in New York, princess?" he asked of her presently, peering at her
through the smoke he was making; and he smiled comfortably across the
distance that separated them.
"I knew you were in America, Saberevski; and to me America means New
York. I believed that you would not be long in making yourself known to
me after my arrival, for I knew that the papers would announce it, and
that your--shall I call it your duties?--would require that you should
not permit my presence here to pass unnoticed."
The man shrugged his shoulders, indulging himself in another smile as
he replied: "It is hardly kind of you to attribute this call to duty on my part.
When I am in your presence I find myself wishing that there were no
such things as duties to be performed. When I look at you, Zara, I wish
that I were young again, and that I might throw duty to the winds and
enter the list against all others who seek you."
An expression of annoyance, as fleeting as it was certain, came into
her eyes, and she replied with a little show of impatience: "Spare me that sort of thing, Saberevski. One does not always wish to
hear such expressions as that; and coming from you, addressed to me,
they are not pleasant."
"Not even when you know them to be sincere, Zara? I spoke in the past
tense, and only of what might have been were the disparity of our years
less, and if the environment by which we are respectively surrounded
could have been different."
"In other words," she smiled back at him, now recovered from her
impatience, "if the world had been created a different one, and if we
were not ourselves; as we are."
"Precisely," he replied, and laughed.
"I did not even look at your card when it was brought to me," she said,
with an abrupt change of the subject; "had I done so I would not have
kept you waiting so long. Tell me something about yourself, Saberevski;
and why it is that you have deemed it wise, or perhaps necessary to
become an expatriate, and to deprive St. Petersburg and all who are
there, of your presence and your wise counsels."