Page:Scribner's Magazine Volume 1.djvu/761

Rh assistance, he was confronted with the tranquil, inscrutable face of Alexis Siebeloff.

was more the fashion than ever. Everybody wanted to see the young American who had been so bravely rescued by General Siebeloff. The social gossips at once had a romance in speculation. The General was a bachelor, the lady was accounted an heiress and a beauty. More than one Russian had taken to himself an American wife. Yet, oddly enough, the romantic conditions did not seem to tend toward romantic conclusions, but rather the contrary.

Helena could scarcely turn the cold shoulder to a man who had saved her life. But after her first grateful acknowledgments, the curiosity that pursued her, the constant ringing upon the one theme of her debt, and the splendid courage and presence of mind of General Siebeloff, began to irritate her. The General also got heartily tired of the subject. Whatever else he might or might not be, he was not a vain man, and he hated to be put forward as a hero. Unlike Helena, however, he did not take on a personality of irritation. Yet he could quite understand how a woman might be rendered embarrassed and uncomfortable in the position of obligation in which the young lady found herself placed, and he therefore cherished no resentment when she responded to him with rather chill politeness on the occasions when they met. Once only had he spoken frankly and freely of his action. It was the day after the event, when Richard had insisted upon taking him to see his cousin, and Helena had spoken, almost tearfully, her words of gratitude; her feelings and her manner intensified, probably, by the remembrance of her bitterly expressed prejudice against this man a few hours before.

"Don't speak of the matter, Miss Wetherby," he said to her at once; "I assure you it was no great risk, no great deed. I knew what I could do, and I did it. If I had seen one of the muzhiks in the same danger, I should just as instinctively have interposed myself as a barrier to his destruction. No, I beg that you will not speak of it, that you will not think of it again—at least as any burden of special obligation."

The Russians are rather renowned for their gallantry of speech. But this was certainly not very gallant, and Helena may be pardoned, perhaps, for feeling as if she had been reproved for overmuch warmth in the expression of her gratitude.

"He is a Russian bear, a perfect Russian bear," she exclaimed, half laughingly, to her cousin when the General had taken his departure.

"He's a soldier and a gentleman, that's what he is. If you want a carpet knight, send for Vodjeska," her cousin retorted.

"Don't get angry, Dick, and abuse Nicolas Vodjeska because he has tact and graciousness, and your dear General Siebeloff has not."

"Tact? I call it the finest tact to try to relieve you at once from a feeling of special obligation. He spoke as he did to make you comfortable, as he would have spoken to a man."

"I don't want to be spoken to as if I were a man, if you please."

"No, you want to be flattered, like all other women. Vodjeska would have said the thing to suit you, if he had been in Siebeloff's place."

"I haven't a doubt of it. Nicolas Vodjeska generally knows what to say."

"But he doesn't always know what to do. If he had been looking about him, taking proper care of you, you would never have run into such danger. He was talking, talking, talking, as he always is. I saw him when he started off away from the rest with you; he was in the full tide of talk then."

A little blush rose to Helena's cheeks.

"Confound the fellow, he was talking sentiment to her," was her cousin's immediate conviction as he noted that red signal of consciousness. With this conviction had come a disturbing suggestion that had once before presented itself to Dick Wetherby's mind—"that that fellow Vodjeska might get Helena mixed up with some political fracas. Helena was always sympathizing with