The man shrugged his shoulders, indulging himself in another smile as he replied:
"It is hardly kind of you to attribute this call to duty on my part. When I am in your presence I find myself wishing that there were no such things as duties to be performed. When I look at you, Zara, I wish that I were young again, and that I might throw duty to the winds and enter the list against all others who seek you."
An expression of annoyance, as fleeting as it was certain, came into her eyes, and she replied with a little show of impatience:
"Spare me that sort of thing, Saberevski. One does not always wish to hear such expressions as that; and coming from you, addressed to me, they are not pleasant."
"Not even when you know them to be sincere, Zara? I spoke in the past tense, and only of what might have been were the disparity of our years less, and if the environment by which we are respectively surrounded could have been different."
"In other words," she smiled back at him, now recovered from her impatience, "if the world had been created a different one, and if we were not ourselves; as we are."
"I did not even look at your card when it was brought to me," she said, with an abrupt change of the subject; "had I done so I would not have kept you waiting so long. Tell me something about yourself, Saberevski; and why it is that you have deemed it wise, or perhaps necessary to become an expatriate, and to deprive St. Petersburg and all who are there, of your presence and your wise counsels."
"I am afraid it is too long a story and hardly worth the telling at that. St. Petersburg has tired of me. I am better away from it, and it is much better with me away; believe me."
"And his majesty, the czar? Is he also of that opinion, my friend?"
"His majesty, the czar, does me the honor, princess, to approve of my present plans and conduct," replied Saberevski with slow and low toned emphasis.
Alexis Saberevski leaned forward in his chair to secure another of the cigarettes, and having lighted it with studied deliberation, resumed his former position gazing between half closed eyelids toward Princess Zara. It was quite evident that he had gone to her with a distinct purpose in view which he meant to fulfill before his departure; and it was plain to be seen that Zara appreciated the fact. While he was silent, she waited, but with a half smile upon her beautiful face, that was quizzical and somewhat whimsical, as if in her secret heart she was aware of the purpose of his errand but for reasons of her own did not wish to anticipate it. And he read her correctly, too. He believed that she understood him even better than he knew her; but viewed from his own standpoint he had a duty to perform in regard to her, and he had gone there to fulfill it.