Princess Zara

"Who was that man?" she asked.

"Alexis Saberevski."

She nodded.

"I know him," she said simply.

"In coming to St. Petersburg and seeking audience with his majesty,

acting thereby under the suggestion made by my friend, I proposed to

the czar the organization of a certain band of men whose duty it has

been, and is, and will continue to be until it is successful, to drive

organized nihilism out of Russia."

"You can never do that," said Zara, with fine contempt.

"I can do it. It shall be done."

She tore herself from my grasp and leaped to her feet, darting across

the room and placing the table between us, with a motion so quick that

she was beyond my reach before I could detain her. I had expected from

her violent action, an outburst of words; but it did not come. Instead,

she stood calmly beyond the table, leaning gently upon it with one

hand, and gazed across the space that separated us, while she said,

coolly, and not without contempt: "Complete your story, Dubravnik. It interests me. I shall be glad

indeed to hear it, finding as I now do, that I have permitted myself to

fall in love with a professional spy."

God! how her tone hurt me! How the words she uttered pierced me! How

the contemptuous scorn in her voice and manner, tore to shreds the

fabric of a beatific existence I had created in my imagination! A

moment ago, confident of her love, her admiration, and her esteem, I

saw now, when it was too late, that the very announcement of my

profession had destroyed it, with a stroke as deadly as the knife of an

assassin in the heart of his victim.

And I understood, also, why my statement should have had such an effect

upon her. Reared as she had been, in the society of St. Petersburg;

taught from her cradle to hate and despise, as well as to fear, a spy;

educated in utter abhorrence of everything that pertains to that class,

at the Russian capital, she could look upon me, now, only with horror

and loathing. I was that thing she had most despised. I was that

monstrosity of creation, which, calling itself a man, was, according to

Zara's lights, without principal, honor, integrity, or manhood.

I stood before her, not with bowed head, as perhaps I might have done

had my true feelings been expressed, but with bowed and stricken heart,

suddenly aware that I had gained the glory of her love only to lose it,

and in a manner which carried with it no redress.

"I have completed an organization of men, Zara," I went on, calmly, and

in a tone which I endeavored to render as monotonous as possible, "that

has for its purpose the undoing of nihilism, as it is now practiced.

That body of men extends, in its ramifications, throughout St.

Petersburg, and even to other cities of Russia. Its purpose, primarily,

is not to send conspirators to Siberia to suffer exile there, with all

the other horrors that go with it, but to----"