Most Interesting Stories of All Nations Part 32

"Little vexations of that kind may happen to anyone," said Bodlevski, ignoring Kovroff's interruption. "You yourself, dear count, had some trouble about some bonds, if I am not mistaken?"

"You are mistaken," the count interrupted him sharply. "I have had various troubles, but I prefer not to talk about them."

"Gentlemen," interrupted Kovroff, "we did not come here to quarrel, but to talk business. Our good friend Count Kallash," he went on, turning to Bodlevski, "wishes to have the pleasure of cooperating in our common undertaking, and--I can recommend him very highly."

"Ah!" said Bodlevski, after a searching study of the count's face.

"I understand! the baroness will return in a few minutes and then we can discuss matters at our leisure."

But in spite of this understanding it was evident that Bodlevski and Count Kallash had not impressed each other very favorably.

This, however, did not prevent the concert of the powers from working vigorously together.

X

AN UNEXPECTED REUNION

On the wharf of the Fontauka, not far from Simeonovski Bridge, a crowd was gathered. In the midst of the crowd a dispute raged between an old woman, tattered, disheveled, miserable, and an impudent-looking youth. The old woman was evidently stupid from misery and dest.i.tution.

While the quarrel raged a new observer approached the crowd. He was walking leisurely, evidently without an aim and merely to pa.s.s the time, so it is not to be wondered at that the loud dispute arrested his attention.

"Who are you, anyway, you old hag? What is your name?" cried the impudent youth.

"My name? My name?" muttered the old woman in confusion. "I am a-- I am a princess," and she blinked at the crowd.

Everyone burst out laughing. "Her Excellency, the Princess! Make way for the Princess!" cried the youth.

The old woman burst into sudden anger.

"Yes, I tell you, I am a princess by birth!" and her eyes flashed as she tried to draw herself up and impose on the bantering crowd.

"Princess What? Princess Which? Princess How?" cried the impudent youth, and all laughed loudly.

"No! Not Princess How!" answered the old woman, losing the last shred of self-restraint; but Princess Che-che-vin-ski! Princess Anna Chechevinski!"

When he heard this name Count Kallash started and his whole expression changed. He grew suddenly pale, and with a vigorous effort pushed his way through the crowd to the miserable old woman's side.

"Come!" he said, taking her by the arm. "Come with me! I have something for you!"

"Something for me?" answered the old woman, looking up with stupid inquiry and already forgetting the existence of the impudent youth.

"Yes, I'll come! What have you got for me?"

Count Kallash led her by the arm out of the crowd, which began to disperse, abashed by his appearance and air of determination.

Presently he hailed a carriage, and putting the old woman in, ordered the coachman to drive to his rooms.

There he did his best to make the miserable old woman comfortable, and his housekeeper presently saw that she was washed and fed, and soon the old woman was sleeping in the housekeeper's room.

To explain this extraordinary event we must go back twenty years.

In 1838 Princess Anna Chechevinski, then in her twenty-sixth year, had defied her parents, thrown to the winds the traditions of her princely race, and fled with the man of her choice, followed by her mother's curses and the ironical congratulations of her brother, who thus became sole heir.

After a year or two she was left alone by the death of her companion, and step by step she learned all the lessons of sorrow.

From one stage of misfortune to another she gradually fell into the deepest misery, and had become a poor old beggar in the streets when Count Kallash came so unexpectedly to her rescue.

It will be remembered that, as a result of Natasha's act of vengeance, the elder Princess Chechevinski left behind her only a fraction of the money her son expected to inherit. And this fraction he by no means h.o.a.rded, but with cynical disregard of the future he poured money out like water, gambling, drinking, plunging into every form of dissipation. Within a few months his entire inheritance was squandered.

Several years earlier Prince Chechevinski had taken a deep interest in conjuring and had devoted time and care to the study of various forms of parlor magic. He had even paid considerable sums to traveling conjurers in exchange for their secrets. Naturally gifted, he had mastered some of the most difficult tricks, and his skill in card conjuring would not have done discredit even to a professional magician.

The evening when his capital had almost melted away and the shadow of ruin lay heavy upon him, he happened to be present at a reception where card play was going on and considerable sums were staked.

A vacancy at one of the tables could not be filled, and, in spite of his weak protest of unwillingness, Prince Chechevinski was pressed into service. He won for the first few rounds, and then began to lose, till the amount of his losses far exceeded the slender remainder of his capital. A chance occurred where, by the simple expedient of neutralizing the cut, mere child's play for one so skilled in conjuring, he was able to turn the scale in his favor, winning back in a single game all that he had already lost.

He had hesitated for a moment, feeling the abyss yawning beneath him; then he had falsed, made the pa.s.s, and won the game. That night he swore to himself that he would never cheat again, never again be tempted to dishonor his birth; and he kept his oath till his next run of bad luck, when he once more neutralized the cut and turned the "luck" in his direction.

The result was almost a certainty from the outset, Prince Chechevinski became a habitual card sharper.

For a long time fortune favored him. His mother's reputation for wealth, the knowledge that he was her sole heir, the high position of the family, shielded him from suspicion. Then came the thunderclap. He was caught in the act of "dealing a second" in the English Club, and driven from the club as a blackleg. Other reverses followed: a public refusal on the part of an officer to play cards with him, followed by a like refusal to give him satisfaction in a duel; a second occasion in which he was caught redhanded; a criminal trial; six years in Siberia. After two years he escaped by way of the Chinese frontier, and months after returned to Europe. For two years he practiced his skill at Constantinople. Then he made his way to Buda-Pesth, then to Vienna. While in the dual monarchy, he had come across a poverty- stricken Magyar n.o.ble, named Kallash, whom he had sheltered in a fit of generous pity, and who had died in his room at the Golden Eagle Inn. Prince Chechevinski, who had already borne many aliases, showed his grief at the old Magyar's death by adopting his name and t.i.tle; hence it was that he presented himself in St.

Petersburg in the season of 1858 under the high-sounding t.i.tle of Count Kallash.

An extraordinary coincidence, already described, had brought him face to face with his sister Anna, whom he had never even heard of in all the years since her flight. He found her now, poverty- stricken, prematurely old, almost demented, and, though he had hated her cordially in days gone by, his pity was aroused by her wretchedness, and he took her to his home, clothed and fed her, and surrounded her with such comforts as his bachelor apartment offered.

In the days that followed, every doubt he might have had as to her ident.i.ty was dispelled. She talked freely of their early childhood, of their father's death, of their mother; she even spoke of her brother's coldness and hostility in terms which drove away the last shadow of doubt whether she was really his sister. But at first he made no corresponding revelations, remaining for her only Count Kallash.

XI

THE PHOTOGRAPH ALb.u.m

Little by little, however, as the poor old woman recovered something of health and strength, his heart went out toward her.

Telling her only certain incidents of his life, he gradually brought the narrative back to the period, twenty years before, immediately after their mother's death, and at last revealed himself to his sister, after making her promise secrecy as to his true name. Thus matters went on for nearly two years.

The broken-down old woman lived in his rooms in something like comfort, and took pleasure in dusting and arranging his things.

One day, when she was tidying the sitting room, her brother was startled by a sudden exclamation, almost a cry, which broke from his sister's lips.

"Oh, heaven, it is she!" she cried, her eyes fixed on a page of the photograph alb.u.m she had been dusting. "Brother, come here; for heaven's sake, who is this?"

"Baroness von Doring," curtly answered Kallash, glancing quickly at the photograph. "What do you find interesting in her?"

"It is either she or her double! Do you know who she looks like?"

"Lord only knows! Herself, perhaps!"

"No, she has a double! I am sure of it! Do you remember, at mother's, my maid Natasha?"

"Natasha?" the count considered, knitting his brows in the effort to recollect.

"Yes, Natasha, my maid. A tall, fair girl. A thick tress of chestnut hair. She had such beautiful hair! And her lips had just the same proud expression. Her eyes were piercing and intelligent, her brows were clearly marked and joined together--in a word, the very original of this photograph!"