"But tell me, Nina.... Do you love this man?"
She turned round and looked at Grogoff as though she were seeing him for
the first time.
"Love?... Oh no, not love! But he will be kind to me, I think. And I
must be myself, be a woman, not a child any longer."
Then, suddenly clearing her voice, speaking very firmly, looking me full
in the face, she said:
"Tell Vera... that I saw... what happened that Thursday afternoon--the
Thursday of the Revolution week. Tell her that--when you're alone with
her. Tell her that--then she'll understand."
She turned and almost ran out of the room.
"Well, you see," said Grogoff smiling lazily from the sofa.
"That settles it."
"It doesn't settle it," I answered. "We shall never rest until we have
got her back."
But, I had to go. There was nothing more just then to be done.
V
On my return I found Vera alone waiting for me with restless impatience.
"Well?" she said eagerly. Then when she saw that I was alone her face
clouded.
"I trusted you--" she began.
"It's no good," I said at once. "Not for the moment. She's made up her
mind. It's not because she loved him nor, I think, for anything very
much that her uncle said.
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