WITH my hand on the door of the room where Helga was, I paused. The thought crossed my mind that I had not been alone with her since the critical moment in which the cloud between us had been swept away, and we had seemed to understand intuitively each the other’s heart feelings.

The thought embarrassed me, and I turned back to try and think my way to some definite practical course of action.

The scene with the Duchess Stephanie had shown me one thing clearly. The failure of Helga’s plans was no longer to be set down solely to me. The Duchess had herself seen the Emperor and patched up peace with him, the chief condition of which had been the restoration of the secret papers.

It appeared, therefore, that the Emperor and old Kalkov had been working for the same end at the same time by different methods. And if this were so, it was equally clear that the wily old Prince had misled me as to the Emperor’s cognizance of my part in the affair. A course on his side which was quite in keeping with Helga’s opinion and description of his methods.

For my part I cared little; he might throw me over if he pleased, and he had doubtless calculated upon that as a probable contingency. But it affected Helga very seriously now, because it had led the Emperor to take a line with the Duchess which he would never have taken, had Kalkov told him what I was doing; and it had thus closed the gates against Helga’s chances of getting to the Emperor himself.Up to the present Helga’s position had been veiled, and if I could have secured her an interview, her story might have been listened to with an impartial ear. But now the Duchess was going in hot haste to prejudice Helga in the Emperor’s eyes by pointing to her as the real source of danger in regard to the papers.

In other words Helga’s scheme for the benefit of Boreski by securing the Imperial consent to the marriage had succeeded, while it had failed so far as it concerned Helga herself. And the very success of it made the failure for her all the more disastrous.

It seemed indeed that the further one went in the whole affair the more hopeless and complicated and dangerous it became.

The moment Helga’s real part in the matter was told to the Emperor he would pass on the knowledge to Kalkov, and the whole machinery of the Government’s secret police and spies would be set in motion for her detection and arrest.

And as if that were not enough, the ominous tangle with the brotherhood had arisen at the same moment.

Between us we had made just a horrible mess of everything; and as the more I pondered the thing alone the more hopeless it looked, I went in at length to Helga to see if I could get any ray of light from her.

The way of a woman is ever a paradox surely, and Helga was very much of a woman in that respect.

When I entered I found her stretched at full length on a sofa in what appeared to me to be an attitude of almost despairing dejection, and so preoccupied that she did not hear me until I closed the door behind me. Then she sat up quickly and looked at me. She had great mastery over her features, and she evinced neither pleasure nor surprise at sight of me.

“Have you forgotten something and returned for it?” she asked with a sort of conventional politeness.

“Returned?”

“I thought you were going with Boreski.”“Did you?” My glance said more than my words.

“The Duchess will have been disappointed.”

“Her disappointment is nothing to me.”

“No?” with a lift of the brows, as if in surprise.

“No,” I repeated. “I have been thinking.”

“You would have been better employed in getting back to the city. You would have covered a third of the distance by now.”

“I am not going. I want to talk to you.”

“Isn’t it rather late?” She pointed this with a glance at the clock.

I could not restrain a smile.

“Is this some new game we are playing?” I asked.

She sat drumming her fingers on the sofa arm.

“Is that what you want to talk about?”

“No. I wish to ask you what you propose to do.”

“And I do not propose to tell you.”

She said this very quietly and calmly, and then suddenly flashed out—

“What I do can be no possible concern of yours, M. Denver.”

“On the contrary it is everything to me,” I returned firmly. “You know that as well as I.”

“I will not know it; I will not have it so.”

“We shall see. What are you proposing to do?”

She looked as if about to make some sharp reply, but with one of her swift changes, she smiled.

“Do you really wish to render me a service, monsieur?”

“I hope to render you many.”

“Then go back to the Palace—to those who sent you to me—and tell them you have failed in your honourable and secret mission. Tell them of me.”

“Thank you, but that is not the kind of service I was expecting you to ask, and I shall not do it.”

“There is no other that I care to ask, then.”

“Why do you wish me to go?”

“Ought I not to be concerned for the safety of so welcome a guest?”“What extraordinary creatures you women are—and you especially. Now if you were a man——”

“Would God that I were!” she interposed vehemently.

“You and I would just sit down and talk over the whole mess, as two friends should, and try to hit on the easiest and best way out of it.”

“Friends!” she cried; but I took no notice of the interruption.

“And when we had hit on the solution we should try to work together to carry it out. But instead of that, here you are flying into a passion just because I ask you what you mean to do; and then you insult me for no reason that I can see or understand, except that I haven’t run away like a coward, unless it is that there’s nobody else around whom you can treat in the same way with impunity.”

“Am I to throw myself on my knees in gratitude to every one who chooses to force the offer of his help upon me?”

“If it does you any good to say this kind of thing to me by all means go on. Only try to concentrate them into a few pithy and bitter sentences and get them over. I can only say they don’t hurt me in the least except that I know you’ll be horribly sorry for them after.”

“I am serious when I say I wish you to leave here.”

“I wish you’d try a cigarette,” and I lit a cigar.

“You are intolerable,” she cried.

“Let’s have an agreement. This cigar will last about twenty minutes or half an hour; suppose you get through with all your nasticisms in that time, and then discuss things soberly.”

“Will you leave the house, M. Denver?”

“Of course I will not—if it means leaving you here. Nothing will shake my resolution to see you through this.”

“But if I tell you that your presence interferes with my plans.”“Good. Go on.”

“I will not have your help, I say.”

“Very well; go on.”

“I may surely choose whom I will to help me.”

“Of course you may.”

“And I don’t choose you, monsieur.”

“All right, but you have a tendency to repeat yourself.”

“Do you wish to provoke me?”

“A bit superfluous, surely. But if you would get into a towering rage and be done with it, it might help us.”

“You dare to insult me only because you think I am defenceless.”

“If you really think I wish to insult you, you are the most extraordinary woman in Russia. You know so much better than that.”

“I wish you to leave the house, monsieur.”

“Why?”

“And if you will not go I will call my servants.”

“Ivan will have no hand in such madness.”

“So you would even try to turn my servants against me.”

“My cigar is half through,” I said, very calmly.

“Ah, you have no answer to that.”

“No, none. Ivan or you yourself can find one easily.”

“You are insufferable,” she cried, her eyes flashing, as she sprang to her feet. “I will not stay in the room with you,” and she crossed to the door.

I went on smoking and would not even turn my head to watch her. At the door she paused.

“Will you leave my house, M. Denver?”

“I have given you my answer already, Mademoiselle Helga.”

“I did not think you could be so grossly discourteous.”

“There’s a good deal about me you seem to persist in misunderstanding. But one thing you shall know clearly—that my will power is every whit as strong as yours.”

“Then I shall leave.”

“That’s precisely what I wish you to do, and Ivan and I will go with you.”

She opened the door and I rose and flung my cigar away.

“I’ve thrown the rest of it away. Now let us be sensible and face things, and stop this wrangling. Come and sit down again.”

“I will not. I will not be insulted.”

I looked her very steadily in the eyes as I crossed the room to her, and she may have divined something of my thoughts, for it seemed to cost her an effort to meet my gaze. And when I was close to her, she shrank slightly and her fingers left the door handle. I closed the door then, and she bit her lip and frowned in the struggle to appear firm. After an intentionally long pause, I said, slowly and deliberately—

“You have been horribly unjust to me. In your anger you have said things that I would suffer from no one else. You know that, and—” I paused and lowered my tone—“and you know why. We both know why, Helga. We learnt it to-night.”

She shook her head quickly.

“I don’t see why you should shake your head. It has changed all my life for me——”

“Don’t,” she interposed.

“Why not? It is true—do or say what you please. You are first in the world to me.”

“I will not hear you. I will not.”

“Then I won’t say it again. But it will always be so. I just want you to feel that and to know it’s in that spirit I wish to talk over things with you. That’s all.”

That she was deeply moved she could not hide from me. She stood with lowered head, her bosom heaving, her lips trembling as she bit them, and her fingers interlocked, until with a deep sigh she appeared to come to a decision, when she lifted her face and answered steadily—

“I do not pretend not to understand you; but I cannot and will not accept your help. You must go away.”

“I will not take that answer, and I will not leave you.”

I spoke as I felt, quite resolved on that point.

The answer pleased her, and the hardness of her face relaxed.

“You are very obstinate,” she said, and her eyes were almost smiling; certainly the light in them was soft.

“It doesn’t matter what we call it. It is the thing that matters. Tell me frankly why you try to refuse my help.”

She did not answer directly, and her eyes were troubled.

“Yes, I will tell you. You have a right to know,” and she recrossed the room to her former place. I followed to mine.

“How far would you go with your help?” she asked, leaning her chin on her hand and gazing at me earnestly.

“I should like to know what that look has behind it, but I can answer the question only in one way. I wish you to be my wife, Helga, and let me help you at every turn in life. I love you.”

“And know nothing of me.”

“I know that you are the one woman the world holds for me. That is enough for me to know.”

“You saw me yesterday for the first time.”

“It will be the same when yesterday is ten or twenty years old. It is no question of mere time.”

“Yet I am not as other women.”

“I don’t love the other women.”

“I do not mean that. You know. I mean I am not a good woman—as women are counted good.”

“I am accustomed to form my own judgments and to trust them.”“I should only ruin you. It is impossible.”

“Wait until I am ruined and then see. But you would not ruin me, on the contrary I should save you from ruin.”

“You are very self-confident.”

“Because I love you.”

The directness of the reply seemed to please her, for she smiled.

“You are very concise, monsieur.”

“This is no time to waste words. We have a crisis to face.”

She paused, and her face hardened a little as if in defiance.

“I have been wooed before—do you realize that?”

“You have not been won.”

“I mean I have led men on to woo me and have jilted them.”

“You did not love them.”

“You mean——” she began with a flash of her eyes which changed to a smile as she stopped abruptly. It died away when I said nothing, and the air of defiance returned. “It is that you will not understand me. I did it to use them for the purpose of my life—and when they were of use no longer I flung them away.”

“Then why not use me?”

“I meant to—at first,” and she threw up her head.

“Why not at last then?”

“Ah, you drive me to speak so plainly. I tell you I am bad—bad to the core, heartless, heedless, sexless if you will, where my revenge is concerned. Now will you go?”

“No.”

“Well, then, if you will have the full truth, you shall. So long as I thought you were the Emperor I set myself with all my woman’s wit and cunning to make you love me. I planned it, schemed for it, and knowing all that it might mean, I yearned for it. I told you I would have made any sacrifice to have won your power to my side. Now, perhaps, you see how base a thing I am.”

“Well, you have succeeded, and have made me love you—though Heaven knows I needed no making. What then?”

“My God, will nothing open your eyes and drive you from me?”

“One thing; but you have not said it yet.”

She looked at me, and emotion seemed to master her till she said passionately—

“You are no use to me. Had you been in truth the Emperor, as God is my judge, I would have been your mistress. But being what you are, I will not be your wife.”

“You are very anxious to blacken yourself in my eyes,” I said after a pause.

“You at any rate shall know the truth—see me for what I am.”

“Why?”

“I wish you to know it.”

“I will tell you why, Helga. There are limits even to the recklessness of your self-slander. I have done you more wrong than I deemed. You had caught yourself in your own toils and come to—to love the Emperor.”

I spoke slowly and deliberately, and as the words left my lips she started as if to make some indignant retort; but checked herself and leant back in her seat, pale and set, her brows wrinkled in intensely earnest thought. I watched her closely, and presently a flush began to spread over her cheeks, and she said slowly, without looking at me—

“Why should I deny it? You wish the truth and shall have it.”

Then she sat up again and bent forward toward me.

“Yes, I love you—if it be love to long to do what you ask, and yet be strong enough to put all thought of doing it out of my heart. I do love you, I believe, and yet I am resolved never to look on your face again. I hate you for the deceit you practised, which has ruined everything for me at the very moment when all seemed to be won. And yet”—her voice and eyes softened and she sighed—“and yet I—I am glad you came.”

“I ask no more than that—at present. Except leave to ask for more when I have undone the mischief I have caused. You will grant that?”

“No—no, a hundred times no.”

“You may make it a million. It will not alter my resolve.”

She laughed with delicious softness.

“Now, you know why I will not have your help.”

“Now, I do not care. I mean to force it on you; I will make it necessary to you. You have shown me the road in what you’ve said. You will marry me when I have helped you to revenge upon old Kalkov. Very well.”

“No, no, I said I would never marry you.”

“I know you did, but that was because you declared I was no use to you. I will make myself of use. I accept your own terms, and from now on I take hold of the thing and handle it in my way.”

“You are very masterful,” she cried.

“No, only American. I’ve a large interest in it now, and on our side we believe in good management. You’ve bungled things awfully, you see, made a holy mess of them all round and wasted no end of opportunities. For all I know you may have spoilt every chance. But there’s still one way, and I shall try that.”

“I can manage my own affairs,” she protested.

“You can mismanage them, you mean; I’m too deep in now to trust your methods any longer. We go my way from now.”

“Indeed, and what is your way?”

I believe all women at heart like to be forced to submit, and Helga’s manner now was a curious mixture of the resentment which her pride dictated and pleasure at meeting a will just a bit stronger than her own.

“I am going to get you to the Emperor before the Duchess can prejudice him.”

“How?”

“Never mind how, I’m going to do it. What you have to do is to go and get some sleep. You can have three hours, and then you must be ready to start, and Madame Korvata must be ready too.”

“But I——”

“I’m not going to let you talk any more,” and I got up and opened the door.

She rose and laughed with a shrug of the shoulders.

“It’s a new sensation to be ordered in this way.”

“In three hours we shall start,” was my reply.

“My nerves are tingling with desire to rebel,” she said, as she came across the room slowly, and when she reached the door she stood and looked at me, smiling. “Do all you Americans make—make love in this way?”

“I’m the business man at present; the lover will come afterwards. You won’t mistake him when his turn comes.”

“Good-night, Monsieur—l’Empereur,” she cried, her look a challenge and her whole expression radiant.

“You will make the lover rush things, Helga, if you look at the business man like that. You ought to be asleep already. Good-night.”

“Asleep? After to-night!” and with a toss of the head she was gone.