Princess Zara

"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."