Nadia

“ And there is another reason why you must proceed very cautiously, and that is Nadia herself. You may trust me—I am an old woman, old and experienced, and Nadia is very young and foolish. As a woman of the world, I can appreciate your willingness to jeopardise your position for her sake; but you know what she is—an eccentric, a fanatic. I am convinced that she fears being thought to pursue you on account of your kingdom, and thinks also that you may have perceived her feelings towards you, and only desire to marry her out of pity.”
Caerleon stood pondering. ”

“ Nadia rose and kissed her silently, and went out. The longing which both she and her mother had just put into words was strong upon her. If only they could have changed so many things! But it was too late. Old counsels of her godmother’s, Caerleon’s little-heeded remonstrances, came thronging back into her mind as she gained her own room and sank down upon a chair. She bowed her head upon the table, and sobbed.
“It is all my fault!” she said. “I never know how much reason I have to love any one before it is too late. Oh, if it may not be too late for her!” ”

“ The old wretch was going to poke me!
"‘Oh, but you mustn't touch it!' cried Nadia, turning pale. 'Look at the notice!'
"The old lady advanced her parasol. But at this moment one of the police appeared at her elbow.
"‘You mustn't touch the figures, madame,' said he, and I blessed him for every word.
"Never a word did the old Princess speak. She glared at me, she glared at Nadia, and she glared at the policeman—and she turned round and walked out of the gallery. The policeman followed her. Nadia softly clapped her hand's: I sprang forward, seized her slim fingers, and kissed them. ”

“ I think you will see that you are cruelly unfair.”
“I daresay I should,” said Nadia, refusing to take the seat to which he tried to draw her. “I have not a doubt that you could convince me—make me yield, at any rate, since my own heart is on your side. But you will not. I know that you are stronger than I am, and you will not take an ignoble advantage of your strength to make me do what I know is wrong. Think,” as he gazed at her in silence, “how we should feel, if I married you, and our marriage plunged Thracia into misfortunes—if you were forced to abdicate.” ”

“ This was the second summer in which she and Felix had seen one another constantly. But there was an image upon the young man's heart which Nadia's had by no means availed to shake. Though his feeling rested upon so small a basis of actuality—though the hours he had spent in the society of Rona were hardly more than the years of his life in number—he yet was hers, body and soul. You cannot pour wine, however fine the vintage, into a vessel already full. ”

“ But she was tongue-tied, and it was Madame O’Malachy who spoke first.
“Turn your face this way a little, my daughter, that I may see you. No; I cannot understand it. Tell me, what was it about you that attracted the notice of King Carlino?”
“I don’t know,” said Nadia, humbly. “I think it was only that he loved me.”
“Yes; but why did he love you?” resumed Madame O’Malachy. “You do not make the most of yourself, you have no conversation, you make no effort to be agreeable. Is it that he admired your plainness of speech, which I, for one, call brutal?”
“Perhaps, a little,” said Nadia. ”

“ She reflected with cold wonder that she had once thought herself in love with Felix—Felix, whose color had never changed, whose breath had never quickened at her coming—whose manner to her was as his manner to Miss Forester, civil, pleasant, neutral. She could not look at Denzil without becoming aware of his intense consciousness of her look. He was her slave. He reddened and paled, smiled or frowned, as she willed. Nadia was a young woman who loved her own way. Her intelligence had always warned her that with Felix she would not have had it. ”

“ We must both turn over a new leaf.”
“At any rate,” said Nadia, with tremendous resolution, “I know what I shall do. I will make it a matter of conscience always to obey any order or suggestion of yours without the slightest hesitation. It only makes trouble when I try to settle things for myself.”
“What!” cried Caerleon, stepping back a pace and looking at her in consternation, “do you intend to use me as a means of self-discipline? I can’t stand that. And who talks about orders? You certainly have a most unflattering opinion of me, Nadia. ”

“ But that is often the hardest thing of all to do. Tell me about it, my child,” repeated the Princess, and Nadia poured forth the story of her first meeting with Caerleon, of his kindness to her, and of the way in which each had learnt to love the other; then his sudden acceptance of the kingdom, with all the changes it had brought in its train; his repeated appeal to her to share his throne, the intrigues by means of which Scythia had sought to gain ascendancy over him through her, her journey to Bellaviste to warn him of the plot against his life, and her resolute but ignominious departure. ”

“ I am going to ask you to make a great sacrifice for me, Nadia. Those silly women out there may think that it’s something very grand to be Queen of Thracia, but you know better, and so do I. It means isolation, and worry, and being opposed and thwarted in what you have set your heart on, and it is very likely to mean danger, perhaps death. ”

“ Nadia has learnt a lesson from the past month; she is humbled, and she will have less confidence in her own judgment from henceforth. She has seen to-day something of your brother’s true character, and the better she knows him, the more she will trust him. Then, they will not have the trial and temptation of idleness, for both of them are born workers. ”

“ He had quitted England with a fierce desire unsatisfied.
And, all unknown to both of them, Nadia was bestowing what Rona had withheld.
This girl was very woman to her finger-tips. No intellectual education had trained her in the ways that Rona had gone. She lived in a world of emotions, with no actual knowledge of life.
The dream of her youth had always been to be English. She loved Miss Forester better than anyone else in the world. She absorbed the literature, the customs, of her beloved land. She read English novels, and longed to come in contact with an English gentleman. ”

“ He sneers at the mere idea of honour.”
“My child, you astonish me!” cried the Princess. “Are you certain of this? To make such accusations without proof is cruel.”
“I know it by what he has said to me himself, Marraine. I had not spoken to him for a week, but I laid aside my anger and implored him to be firm, to do his duty,—and he laughed at me.”
“I am certain you are making a mistake, Nadia,” said her godmother, with most unusual decision. “You have judged hastily and harshly, and you are wronging an excellent man. ”

“ But soon his thoughts took a lower flight.
“We have jumped to conclusions too hastily,” he said to Nadia. “The possession of the handkerchief doesn’t necessarily prove that she is a Grand Duchess. It may have been a gift of the Czar.”
This way of looking at the matter seemed to relieve Nadia’s mind somewhat, though why she should look so troubled over the discovery was a puzzle to Wilfrid.
“Besides,” he continued, “if she were an Imperial Duchess, her suite would select, as her stopping-place for the night, the castle of some grand boyar, rather than a wayside hostelry.” ”

“ It is Christ you are to follow. What would you think of a soldier who chose to live out in the snow rather than in the barracks provided for him? Would he make himself a better soldier by ruining his health and risking his life in such a way?”
“No, but——” the idea was too novel for Nadia to grasp it at once in its entirety.
“And think what it is that you have been accepting as right,” the Princess went on, with sudden passion. “You tell the man who has assured you that he loves you alone in the world that if he desires to please you he must marry another woman. ”

“ He fled from Retoc. Is that a god? Is that even a man who can bring retribution to Retoc? Is it, Hammeth? Is it?"
"Yet you're taking the road to Nadia even as legend says the White God will take the road to Nadia."
"Nonsense," said Ylia, wiping away her tears. "Someone has to tell the Nadians what really happened to poor Jlomec, that's all. Retoc, Retoc will have them eating off his hand. He'll have them believing whatever he says. They'll never know that he killed a prince of their royal blood."
"But what can Bontarc of Nadia—or anyone—do against the power of Retoc's Abarians?" ”

“ Nadia, have you no pity? Give me some hope. Say that after a year—two years—any length of time—I may speak to you again. What is a man to do when you bring up his own sense of honour against him?”
“He must submit,” said Nadia. Caerleon stood looking at her in silence, his heart protesting wildly against the barriers she had raised between them. It was on his lips to say, “You have told me you love me, and that’s enough. Nothing shall part us.” He felt sure that his love must prevail over her scruples ”

“ Weekes and Bertram, appointing themselves cooks, heated up in enamel saucepans over tins of solid alcohol. It made the time pass, and was more comforting than cold food.
At night, in the darkness of the corridor, Nadia stood by his side, and sometimes they held hands, like children when the lights are out.
They talked of the mystery of life and death, the chances of world peace, the future of civilisation. Strange topics of conversation between a young man and woman! But travelling through Russia after war and revolution, they seemed the only subjects worth discussing. ”

“ From a few words let fall by one of the party I believe the boyarine is returning from some such a visit.”
“It may be,” responded Wilfrid. “Is she young or old?”
“Not much past twenty,” replied Nadia.
“And her appearance?”
“Her appearance!” repeated Nadia with enthusiastic warmth. “Her appearance! Ah! gospodin, how can one describe what is indescribable? I am told that there lives a German duchess so beautiful that once, when passing through a certain village of Italy, the simple-minded peasants knelt, believing her to be the Madonna. ”

“ I bear you no grudge, though you have ruined my boy's life. Young girls have not always the control of their hearts. But I tell you that those two—Nadia and the Englishman—are in love—deep in love, the one with the other. ”

“ When they peered in, they discovered her lying staring up at the ceiling, her face pale and her lips moving, as if in prayer.
“Pard,” said Brad, “she sure is a right pretty girl.”
“She is,” agreed Dick. “But you mustn’t forget Nadia Budthorne, old man.”
“Now quit!” remonstrated the Texan soberly. “No danger that I’ll get smashed on this girl, partner. My sympathy for her is aroused a heap, that’s all.”
“When a fellow becomes very sympathetic for a pretty girl, he’s liable to fall in love with her. I fancy your sympathy was aroused for Nadia, to begin with.” ”

“ No man will put up with such treatment for ever.”
“I want to make him care,” said Nadia, with fierce determination, and she went on deck, stifling in her heart the Princess’s warnings and the answering echo of her own conscience, which told her that the real reason for her quarrel with Caerleon was that he had disappointed her ambitious dreams for him. Emerging from the companion, she found the subject of her thoughts examining the distant coast-line with the aid of a glass borrowed from Captain Binks. ”

“ Nadia needed me, and that was enough.
"But of all our rendezvous, there was none which we found more convenient and suitable than Madame Marribon's waxwork exhibition. It was a long way from the Princess's residence, in an unfashionable quarter of the town, and was frequented mainly by persons who did not move in society and were quite unfamiliar with faces as well known in the great world as those of the Princess and myself. Our only danger arose from the maid-servants of our acquaintances and from the police ”

“ How are you to retain your influence over men if you have no idea of the means by which you first attracted their attention—their admiration?”
“I don’t want to obtain influence over men,” said Nadia, in a choking voice. “My own life has not been so successful that I need make any more efforts to direct others.”
“That exactly proves the truth of what I was saying,” said Madame O’Malachy. “Tell me,” she added suddenly—“do you still love this young man?” ”

“ Rona, all unintentionally, came to his rescue, by going to a table and taking up a photograph of Nadia that stood upon it. "Is this Miss—is it the Governor's daughter?" she asked.
"It is. She is attractive, you think—eh? What you call very pretty?"
His quaint accent made the girl smile. "She is beautiful," she replied, as if grudgingly.
"Her attraction is of the kind that some men find too much—not to be resisted," he said, hurriedly. "I know but one who gave not a thought to her. That was my poor, good Felix. ”

“ But Nadia was timid. The long slope, from where her little overshoes were planted to the foot of the ice-clad hill, looked to her like the wall of a terrible, yawning chasm. Her heart stopped beating, and she held her breath as she gazed into that abyss while I urged her to take her seat on the sled. What might not happen were she to risk a flight over that precipice ! She would die, she would go mad !
"Come, I implore you !" I urged her again. "Don't be afraid ! It is cowardly to fear, to be timid." ”