Her character presented an enigma almost impossible to solve. Perhaps it is not the part of a wise man ever to try to understand a woman. Her motives must always be mysterious, even to herself. It is sufficient if one can learn to forecast her actions, and even that is seldom possible.
"Then you refuse my help?" I asked reproachfully.
"You cannot help me," was the answer. "At least, that is, unless you possess some power I have no idea of at present."
It was an ingenious turning of the tables. Instead of my questioning the Princess, she was questioning me, in effect.
I made what was perhaps a rash admission.
"I am not wholly powerless, at all events. There are few sovereigns in Europe whom I have not obliged at some time or other. Even the German Emperor, though I have more than once crossed his path in public matters, is my personal friend. In spite of his occasional political errors, he is a stainless gentleman in private life, and I am sure he would hear with horror of your position and the means by which you had been forced into it."
Sophia looked at me with an expression of innocent bewilderment which I could scarcely believe to be real.
"The German Emperor! But what has he to do with me?"
"He is said to have some influence with the Czar," I said drily.
"Oh, the Czar!" Her tone was scathing in its mixture of pity and indifference. "Every one has some influence with the Czar. But is there any one with whom Nicholas has influence?"
It was the severest thing I had ever heard said of the man whom an ironical fate has made master of the Old World.
Suddenly the manner of the Princess underwent a sudden change.
She rose to her feet and gave me a penetrating glance, a glance which revealed for the first time something of that commanding personality which had made this slight, exquisite creature for years one of the most able and successful of secret negotiators, and a person to be reckoned with by every foreign minister.
"You do not trust me, Andreas V----. It is natural. You do not love me. It is possible that it is my fault. But I have sworn to save your life, and I will do it in your own despite. In order that I may succeed, I will forget that I am a woman, and I will forget that you regard me as a criminal. Come here! I will show you into my oratory, into which not even my confidential maid is ever allowed to penetrate. Perhaps what you will see there may convince you that I am neither a traitor nor a Delilah."