Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/187

 ''of Russia by ladies of the Court! Full particulars! Telltale, special! Telltale!''’

‘Good heavens, how horrible!’ exclaimed Lady Humnoddie, ringing the bell. ‘Get one of those papers, please;’ and the servant re-appeared with one in half a minute, and handed it to her.

‘Can it be true? the Emperor shot dead in the throng of a summer festive gathering, by two Nihilists, ladies in the Empress’ suite! The assassins not yet arrested! What dreadful days we live in!’

‘I am very grieved to hear it,’ said Lesbia. ‘Poor Czar! Pity the sorrows of a despotic monarch! And so useless to the cause of freedom! They'll only put up another in his place, perhaps a more tyrannical one.’

‘There is no proof that any of the modern Czars have been personally tyrannical,’ said Mr Bristley, recovering from his amazement at the tragic news; ‘they have probably been the tools of an interested clique, and this is how they have to pay the penalty for a system into which they have been born and bred, and from which it is hard for them to escape. What a pity it is! Give me any respectable place in the world rather than that of a Russian emperor; but if I were one, I would infinitely rather take my chance of being murdered by my own rascally underlings than go about in perpetual fear of those who can pose before the world as the champions and martyrs of popular liberty. I would adopt Garibaldi’s motto, ‘Se cadro, cadro da fute, il mio novue resteia.’ How much better, how much more satisfactory to heart and conscience, to incur personal danger in the cause of reforms, which would draw together prince and subjects, and win for my country the confidence and approbation of Europe, than to incur it by perseverance in courses which have the very opposite of those effects!’

‘It’s very sad,’ said Lady Humnoddie; ‘but as for that, I