“Do your questions give me the same right of investigation?  I’ll answer you, anyhow.  I’ve decided to lay down my cards, Lucie.  I came here on business.  I broke all ties.  Nobody wants me.  I am investigating at my own expense, at my own risk, out of curiosity only.  But I am free.  Don’t you need me?  Don’t you need a friend?  Can’t we live without deceiving each other, without robbing,—­eh?  I came here, Lucie,—­and behind all of my intentions was one thing only:  I hoped to find you, and tell you how much I love you.  I knew you had to be near the center, and the center is, at least now—­here.  Don’t lie to me, bad girl, I know what I am talking about.  Now—­when I think we again will part—­I have chills; especially when I think of your manner of going away:  pinning a “good-by” to the cushion.  Please, let us be together!”

“You should not tempt me, Alex.  I feel just as you do, only—­I don’t think I can even dream of our being together—­right now, I mean.  What will be after—­we’ll see.”

“Cannot you arrange something for me so that I could be with you in your business?  Did not you ask me before to do so?  Now—­I come to you.”

“It’s true, I did.  Things have changed.  Can you believe me when I swear I am telling the truth?  Yes?  You’ll try?  Well, I wanted you in Petrograd—­you fascinated me; that was all,—­and if then, after being with us, you had come to know too much and something had happened to you, I would, of course, have been sorry,—­but,—­how shall I say it?  Not too much.  In Tumen,—­you know I came to Syvorotka with certain purposes:  you described them well in your diary, so well that I had to put my censorship on them,—­I did not suspect Syvorotka was—­you....”

I made an impatient movement.  “Again your fairy tale?”

“Alex!” she exclaimed, “I conjure you to believe me!  Can’t you see?  Get me to tell you the truth when I am so happy as now!  I could not lie to you!  So that’s how I came to Tumen.  You were there, and you know what happened.  Now—­don’t laugh at me,—­I understand that you risked too much,—­and I ran away, because I saw—­I loved you.  I’d die if I knew something had happened to you on account of me.  I told them that you had gone to Kazan, or Nijni, that you had turned into a real bolshevik.  They think you are out.  For them—­you are lost.  And they must not see you here.”

“Who are ‘they’?  And how about you knowing too much?” I inquired.  “Your mysteries don’t sound grave anyhow.”

“Alex,—­I’ll be angry!  Again you ask silly things.”

So I kissed her and asked how Stanley was and the Russian and the Letts, and the pony.

“Poor little thing!  It died.  We tried to reach Tobolsk with it.”

“Your Stanley poisoned it with his chimney,” I said.

“Don’t hold anything against him, Alex.  He is a good fellow.  And don’t be jealous, you bad, dirty, lovable crank.  He still thinks you are a Canadian.”