re a Russian prince, and
your estates are the happiest, the most enlightened in the empire. That
alone is suspicious. You collect your rents yourself. You have no German
agents--no German vampires about you. There are a thousand things
suspicious about Prince Pavlo Alexis if those that be in high places
only come to think about it. They have not come to think about
it--thanks to our care and to your English independence. But that is
only another reason why we should redouble our care. You must not be in
Russia when the Charity League is picked to pieces. There will be
trouble--half the nobility in Russia will be in it. There will be
confiscations and degradations: there will be imprisonment and Siberia
for some. You are better out of it, for you are not an Englishman; you
have not even a Foreign Office passport. Your passport is your patent of
nobility, and that is Russian. No, you are better out of it."

"And you--what about you?" asked Paul, with a little laugh--the laugh
that one brave man gives when he sees another do a plucky thing.

"I! Oh, I am all right! I am nobody; I am hated of all the peasants
because I am your steward and so hard--so cruel. That is my certificate
of harmlessness with those that are about the Emperor."

Paul made no answer. He was not of an argumentative mind, being a large
man, and consequently inclined to the sins of omission rather than to
the active form of doing wrong. He had an enormous faith in Karl
Steinmetz, and, indeed, no man knew Russia better than this cosmopolitan
adventurer. Steinmetz it was who pricked forward with all speed, wearing
his hardy little horse to a drooping semblance of its former self.
Steinmetz it was who had recommended quitting the travelling carriage
and taking to the saddle, although his own bulk led him to prefer the
slower and more comfortable method of covering space. It would almost
seem that he doubted his own ascendency over his companion and master,
which semblance was further increased by a subtle ring of anxiety in his
voice while he argued. It is possible that Karl Steinmetz suspected the
late Princess Natasha of having transmitted to her son a small
hereditary portion of that Slavonic exaltation and recklessness of
consequence which he deplored.

"Then you turn back at Tver?" enquired Paul, at length breaking a long
silence.

"Yes; I must not leave Osterno just now. Perhaps later, when the winter
has come, I will follow. Russia is quiet duri