You
may look in your mirror and note these accidents with satisfaction; you
may feel young and indulge in the pastimes of youth without effort. But
you are thirty-five. We know it. We who look at you can see it for
ourselves, and, if you could only be brought to believe it, we think no
worse of you on that account.
The man who rode beside Karl Steinmetz with gloomy eyes and a vague
suggestion of flight in his whole demeanor was, like reader and writer,
exactly what he seemed. He was the product of an English public school
and university. He was, moreover, a modern product of those seats of
athletic exercise. He had little education and highly developed
muscles--that is to say, he was no scholar but essentially a
gentleman--a good enough education in its way, and long may Britons seek
it!
This young man's name was Paul Howard Alexis, and Fortune had made him a
Russian prince. If, however, anyone, even Steinmetz, called him prince,
he blushed and became confused. This terrible title had brooded over him
while at Eton and Cambridge. But no one had found him out; he remained
Paul Howard Alexis so far as England and his friends were concerned. In
Russia, however, he was known (by name only, for he avoided Slavonic
society) as Prince Pavlo Alexis. This plain was his; half the Government
of Tver was his; the great Volga rolled through his possessions; sixty
miles behind him a grim stone castle bore his name, and a tract of land
as vast as Yorkshire was peopled by humble-minded persons who cringed at
the mention of his Excellency.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25