When one is sentenced to death by the nihilists in Russia it sends a
cold shiver down the back, no matter how brave and self-reliant one may
be, for those fanatics have an uncomfortable way of carrying out such
decrees to the bitter end. However, I smiled and assured the princess
that I thought I could find a way to avoid the consequences of my
eavesdropping, and then awaited the moment when she would say more. For
a long time she was silent, and during it I studied her carefully, for
she was the most complex puzzle that I had ever encountered in the
shape of a woman. I had heard enough to know that she was not only a
conspirator against the life of the emperor, but that she was
ostensibly if not really, the leader among her fellow conspirators; or
if not the leader, then a leader. I had heard her talk glibly of
assassination and death, and I had heard her deplore in mental anguish
the part she was forced to play in the game of Russian politics. In one
moment I had believed her to be a heartless schemer, a murderess, and
one who was devoid of compassion; and in the next I was forced to the
conjecture that she was a victim of circumstances, and that she had no
love for or sympathy with the cause she advocated. Now, as I watched
her, the same emotions succeeded each other in my judgment of her
character, and finally I summed them all up in the decision that she
was a being who was swayed by impulses. There are seeming paradoxes
which will explain just what my conclusions were concerning Zara de
Echeveria. She was deliberately impulsive; calculatingly reckless;
systematically chaotic. The warm, Southern blood in her veins impelled
her to deeds which were rendered thrice effective by reason of the fact
that she applied to them the calculating coolness and method of her
Russian ancestors. Hence the paradox.
Presently she raised her eyes to mine.
"Dubravnik," she said slowly, "there is one way of escape for you; and
there is only one."
"What is that?" I asked.
"You must become a nihilist."
"I had thought of that," I returned coolly. For, indeed, I had thought
of it, although not at all from the motive she understood me to mean.
"You had thought of it?" she cried. "Do you say that earnestly, or only
to lead me on?"
"Was it not this very point that you were discussing with your brother
when you entered the garden last night, princess?" I asked, recalling
the mention of my name between them at that time.
"Yes; I had said to him that you were the kind of a man who should be
added to our ranks. I think you must have heard his reply."