The shears of destiny

HE drew slowly near her.

“So after all, you are——”

The smile grew more mischievous. “Mary Davis, of course. Whom did you think?”

He was pulsing with exultant wildness; but he knew well that he had to hold himself under control.

“Then,” said he, “you at last trust me?”

“What you were just about to do proved your sincerity. I could not let you go further with it. But come—please sit down.”

He first pushed a chair for her before the fireplace, then drew one up beside her. Her smile sobered and she looked at him steadily.

“Yes, I think I can trust you. There are your actions as proof. And then, had you wanted to betray me, you have had plenty of time to do so. Our ideals are separated by the width of the world—but I trust your honour.”

“You can indeed!” was all he could say.

Her smile came back. Till this last minute he had never seen her really smile, so had never seen but half her beauty.

“If I am not mistaken, you are a little curious?”

“I am dumbfounded!”

“You know so much already, there is no reason you should not know more—provided it goes no further than yourself. First question?”

“I—I don’t know where to begin. Five days ago I saw you in St. Petersburg. Yet it seems that all the while you have been in Berlin. I think I can make a guess at the explanation, but——”

“Yes, it’s simple enough. First let me say that I was supposed to be abroad for pleasure; in reality I was there on business affairs of the revolutionists. Two weeks ago I suddenly announced that I was leaving Berlin to visit a friend in France. I am known as very self-willed; that explains and excuses much. I secretly entered Russia, as a poor student, on a false passport. When I left you, five nights ago, I took a train; three days ago I reappeared in Berlin from my French visit; the next day I set out for Russia.”

“That’s much as I guessed,” said Drexel.

“I would have remained here in disguise longer,” she continued, “but last night’s ball had been long arranged for, the invitations had been out for a month, and I had already once postponed my homecoming. To postpone it further was impossible.”

“But why did you, and not some less important person, undertake that dangerous mission at Prince Berloff’s?”

“For two reasons. First, I was best qualified. And then——”

She paused and gazed at him keenly. “Yes, I shall tell you that. You know the Government does not know who the prisoner Borodin is.”

“So I have been told.”

“And only half a dozen persons do know who he is. You have heard that I have an older brother?”

“Who became involved with the revolutionists and disappeared four or five years ago. And how your father—”

“Yes, to have a revolutionist in his family—that almost broke my father’s proud heart. Well—Borodin is my brother.”

“Your brother!” Drexel ejaculated. “Ah, I see now why you were ready to risk so many dangers. To save your brother!”

“To save my brother. And to save a leader whom the cause of liberty cannot spare.”

“You must love him.”

“Dearly!” said she, and her blue eyes lighted up. “He is so noble, single-hearted, brilliant!”

“But your father does not guess that Borodin is his son?”

“No.”

“And of course he does not know what you are at heart, what you have done?”

“No. If he knew!” Her face saddened. “And sometime he must know, for I cannot always successfully play this double part.”

Drexel, remembering the stern, proud old man, and knowing the love that existed between the two, could but wonder what would happen on that day when the general should learn the truth.

“It was the news of my brother’s arrest that brought me flying back to Russia,” she went on. “I was best fitted for the mission of going to Prince Berloff’s house.”

“But was it necessary for you to go to Berloff’s?” he broke in. “Could you not have learned, without risk, Borodin’s whereabouts from your father?”

“My father did not know and does not know. The heads of the secret police were, for their own purpose, keeping the place of his imprisonment a close secret. I was best suited for going to Prince Berloff’s because, while my father was governor of a Siberian province, Prince Berloff was in a way my guardian. I once lived at his house, and since then I have visited there much, though not recently. So I knew his house, and knew it well. I planned my call at a time when I knew he was expected to be absent for a few hours.”

“Yes, but the servants,” said Drexel. “There was the danger that you might be recognized by them.”

“But none had ever seen me before. He changes his servants every few months.”

“Changes them?”

“That they may not learn too much and begin to suspect.”

“Suspect?”

“Yes. Who he is. Rather, what he is.”

“And what is he?”

She gazed at him steadily a moment. “Prince Berloff is the actual head of Russia’s spy system.”

“What!” cried Drexel. And he sprang to his feet and stared at her.

“The master of Russia’s hundred thousand human bloodhounds,” she went on with a sudden fierce abhorrence. “The cunningest, cruellest, most unscrupulous man between Germany and the Pacific Ocean!”

“And this is the man that my cousin—” He looked at her blankly.

“Yes,” said she. “And the man I would have married, too, could my father have had his way. He was after my money, just as he is after your cousin’s. His ambition knows no limit—nor his unscrupulousness. He uses his office to further his own ends. If any stand in the way of his ambition, his control of the infamous machinery of the secret police gives him power to do away with them in a dozen ways—by death, exile, or imprisonment.”

“And he has done that?”

“Again and again. He would wipe me out of existence without a moment’s hesitation could he safely do it; with my brother outlawed, that would make him heir to my father’s estate. He will either be Russia’s prime minister, or else, before then, some terrorist—” The lifting of her shoulders spoke the rest.

A mystery that had puzzled Drexel for near a week was suddenly illumined. “I see now why you feared me, that night in the hotel, when I told you who I was!”

“Yes. The friend, the guest, the kinsman of Prince Berloff seemed indeed a man to flee from.”

“To think that we have never guessed what he is!”

“Only a very few in the Government know the office he fills, and only a few of us. He works through one or two trusty subordinates who are nominally the head of the system.”

“But what are his reasons for this concealment?”

“In the first place, since no one suspects what he is, he can work more craftily. In the second place—well, you can guess that a chief of spies is not exactly a popular idol. Von Plevhe spent a million rubles a year to protect his person, and even with that he died by a terrorist’s bomb. Instead of defending himself by the vain expenditure of a million on personal guards, Prince Berloff defends himself by keeping his hated office a secret.”

“I see. But why have you revolutionists not exposed him?”

“We have kept the matter a secret for much the same reason that he has kept it secret. So long as he believes himself unsuspected, we can work all the better against him.”

He stared at her. He remembered how calmly, how haughtily she had stood beside Prince Berloff, who had never a thought that the woman upon his arm was his bitter enemy, was fighting him with her very wit. And then, with a thrill of wonderment, he began to consider what a marvel it was that this young woman who had everything—great wealth, princely birth, such homage as was given to but few in a nation—everything that the world prized, should care so little for them all.

“I cannot understand, princess—” he began slowly.

“Do not call me princess!” she interrupted, her face beginning to glow. “I hate the word! Since you know me for what I am, call me what my comrades call me. Call me Sonya.”

“It is hard for me to understand then, how you are willing to risk position, rank, wealth—”

She rose and stood before him, her beauty heightened by the deepening glow of her face, by the flash of her eyes.

“My position!” cried she, opening wide her arms. “My position! What won me my position, my rank, my wealth? I will tell you. A thousand years ago, and more, one of my ancestors was a strong man. He made himself great by seizing the rights and property of others. The Government helped him hold on to what he had seized, and during all the thousand years since the Government has helped his descendents hold on to that power and property and keep the disinherited ones, the robbed ones, in subjection. And to-day it is helping me!

“People call me beautiful, cultured, noble. If this be true, why is it true? Because for a thousand years thousands of people have toiled, suffered, starved, been beaten down! I am the product of all that misery! Not for a day, not for an hour, would I keep my position were it not for one thing alone. I have a large income, all of which, except what I need to maintain appearances, is now turned over to the revolutionists; were I openly to join the revolutionists, that money, which we need so much, would be confiscated and lost to us. The need of this money forces me to hold my place; otherwise I would be openly in the fight to regain the people their lost rights, to gain them rights they have never had! To win their liberty, and all that liberty will mean! Ah, the people! Our poor maimed and mourning people!”

As she spoke there was a vague sense in Drexel of the contrast between them: she the apex of old-world aristocracy, giving her whole soul to the people; he of the over-night American aristocracy, trampling upon the people, giving his whole soul to winning that which she would so gladly throw away. As she finished, standing before him a-tremble with sympathy and passion, her superb beauty illumined by the inspiration of her purpose, he felt himself fairly lifted to his feet; and thrilled, he stretched out an eager hand to her.

“And I—I will help you!” he cried.

“You help?” Her lips half curled with scorn. “You with such ideals as you expressed the other night!”

“Never mind ideals! I will help!”

Those eyes of blue searched him narrowly.

“If not impelled to help by ideals, then by what?”

He well knew by what; by her spirit, her personality, by his love—but he cried:

“What impels me matters not, so long as I serve well and ask no reward!”

She considered a space, then said slowly: “No, we have no right to refuse any trustworthy aid. And I know that I can trust you; and that you have courage and readiness of wit. But, you have counted the risk?”

“I am ready for the risk!”

She was silent a moment. “You know what we are trying to do now. Our present endeavour is but an incident of the great struggle; but the future of the cause, the liberation of the people, depend largely upon saving my brother from death.”

“I understand.”

“To-morrow I go to Prince Berloff’s house party, and so do you. The reason I accepted the invitation was the opportunity offered for continuing the search, interrupted the other day, for some document revealing the whereabouts of my brother. You could help me, and help me much.”

She held out her hand. “Shall it be you and I against Prince Berloff?”

He pressed her hand.

“You and I,” he half whispered, “against—” He checked the words that rushed to his lips, but they sounded through all his being: “Against the world!”