"It is bad enough," he repeated as he began to smoke.
"It would have been very easy to get away, if you had done like that brute
of a Schmidt who ran away and left us."
"I do not think Schmidt is a brute," observed the other, blowing a huge
ring of white smoke out into the dusk.
"I did not think so either. But I had arranged it all very well for you to
get away--only you would not. You see, by an accident, the key was outside
the door, so I kicked the people back and locked it. It would have taken a
quarter of an hour for them to open it, and if you had only jumped--"
He turned his head, and glanced at the Count's spare, sinewy figure.
"You are light, too," he continued, "and you could not have hurt yourself.
I cannot understand why you stayed."
"Dumnoff, my friend," said the Count, gravely, "we look at things in a
different way. It is my duty to tell you that I think you behaved in the
most honourable manner, under the circumstances, and I am deeply indebted
to you for the gallant way in which you came back to stand by me, when you
were yourself free. In a nobler warfare, such an action would have been
rewarded with a cross of honour, as it truly deserved. It is true, as
well, that you were not so intimately connected with the main question at
stake, as I was, since it was I who was suspected of being in possession
of unlawfully gotten goods. You were consequently, I think, at liberty to
take your freedom if you could get it, without consulting your conscience
further.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98