He cast her a fulminating glance, annoyed that she should cast doubts on what seemed to him so certain.
'I don't know. But it will never happen.'
'But suppose it did?'
'Oh, you make me lose all patience. We shall see. There are always ways of finding a ship. If the worst comes to the worst—'
'You can always steal one? It's becoming a habit with you. Well, it's not always possible, let me tell you. Not even for such an intrepid seaman as yourself. Be sensible for once, Jason, and listen to me. We have nothing to fear from Napoleon and everything to gain. Let us go straight to meet him. I promise you I've no ulterior motive in suggesting it. And indeed,' she gave a bitter little laugh, 'indeed I thought that we had finished once for all with all that, that it was old history—'
'It won't be old history until you have rid yourself of this overriding obsession to go to him at any cost.'
Marianne sighed distressfully. 'But I have no obsession, except to get away and go with you, as soon as possible! The only thing is that I have it in my power to do the Emperor a service, a very great service in return for which he will gladly provide me with the best and fastest ship in Danzig – not just a passage, or even a loan, but as a gift! You see—'
There was no holding her now. In spite of all Jolival's anxious glances, warning her not to show all her hand, Marianne was carried away by her own anger, and by an almost physical need to convince Jason. She was beyond stopping and by the time she saw that she had given too much away it was too late. The inevitable question had been asked.
'A service?' Jason demanded suspiciously. 'What kind of service?'
It was said to hurt and she was on the point of snapping back that it was none of his business but she controlled herself and merely reminded him that the question might have been more courteously phrased. 'However, I will answer it all the same, as politely as I can,' she said. 'Naturally, considering the state of your feelings towards the Emperor, I cannot tell you the precise nature of the information I am carrying. I will only tell you that I learned by chance of a grave danger threatening not just the Emperor himself but his whole army and—' She broke off, for Jason had begun to laugh but it was a laughter with no trace of amusement in it.
'I will follow you to Siberia if you will, you said! And all the time your one object was to reach Napoleon! And I believed you!'
'And you should believe me still, for I meant what I said, and so I do still. But that does not mean that when fate puts into my hand the means of warning my friends of a danger threatening them that I should do nothing and maybe let them walk into a trap.'
Jason's brow was set in obstinate lines and he was clearly about to make a sharp rejoinder when Jolival came to his friend's aid.
'Don't be a fool, Beaufort,' he cried impatiently. 'And don't start behaving again in a way you will be sorry for afterwards! None of us forgets that you have little to be grateful for in the Emperor's treatment of you but you will not remember that Napoleon is not a private person to be dealt with as an equal by us or by you.'
'I'd have expected you to agree with Marianne,' the American remarked.
'I see no cause to disagree with her. Far from it. And, if I may say so, this seems to me to be a singularly pointless argument. You want to reach St Petersburg and our way there, whether you like it or not, is almost bound to bring us into contact with Napoleon's army. That being so, Marianne would be betraying her country if she failed to deliver the information she has. In any case, to put your mind at rest, I can tell you, if it will satisfy you, that she will not see Napoleon. I will go to him myself when the time comes. I shall leave you and we will meet again later. If you are willing to wait for me, I may even be able to bring you an order for a vessel, in which case there will be no further problem. Does that satisfy you?'
Jason made no answer. He was standing with folded arms staring down with a grim expression into the blue waters of the Dnieper, which the Greeks had called Boysthenes, as it flowed southwards in a broad, majestic stream at his feet. The travellers had descended from their vehicle and strolled a little way along the river, past the painted wooden houses of the lower town, newly rebuilt after the disastrous fire which had destroyed the commercial district of Podil, with its church and warehouses, in the preceding year. Above them, on a kind of cliff overhanging the river harbour, which occupied the narrow strip of land between it and the stream, was the old town, enclosed within its medieval walls, with its blue and gold onion domes, its rich religious houses and old-fashioned, brightly-painted wooden palaces.
Outside the inn built of undressed logs which did duty as a posting house, the driver was unhitching the horses.
Still Jason said nothing and in the end it was Craig O'Flaherty who lost patience and answered for him. Clapping his captain on the back with a force sufficient to have knocked him into the river, he beamed at Jolival with cheerful approval.
'He'll be a churl if he's not satisfied. Sure, you talk like a book, Vicomte. And you've a knack of hitting on a solution that suits everyone. And now, if you please, let's be making for that henhouse they call an inn and see if they can find us some dinner. I could eat ahorse.'
Jason followed the others without a word but Marianne had a feeling he was still not convinced. She was sure of it when, after what was certainly the best meal they had eaten since setting out, consisting as it did of a vegetable bortsch to start with, followed by a thick, twisted sausage called kolbassa and vareniki, light, sugared tarts, the privateer got up from the table and announced curtly that they had better get to bed since they would be leaving the city at four the next morning. This was tantamount to a declaration that he intended to do his utmost to beat Napoleon's army to it, and no one made any mistake about it.
Marianne least of all, for that night she waited in vain for her lover beneath the inevitable icon which, this time, depicted, no less inevitably, St Vladimir. The door of the tiny room with its lingering odours of cooking fat and cabbage never opened to admit Jason.
In the end, tired of turning over and over on her mattress like St Lawrence on his gridiron, she got up but remained undecided what to do next. She hated the idea of letting a fresh misunderstanding grow between them. This quarrel was a stupid one, like so many lovers' tiffs in which both parties seemed determined to vie with one another in selfishness and unfairness. But with a man as stubborn as Jason, who could carry obstinacy to the point of blind stupidity, it could become protracted. And that, too, was something Marianne could not endure. Their journey was painful enough as it was.
For a minute or two she prowled to and fro between the door of her room and its small window, set wide open because of the heat which, even at this time of night, was stifling. She was consumed with longing to go to Jason. After all, it was her idea of going straight on to Smolensk which had started the argument and it might be for her to make the first move towards a reconciliation. But to do that she would have to overcome her pride which revolted at the picture of herself going humbly to seek out her lover in the room which he was no doubt sharing with Jolival (which would not be too bad) or, much more awkward, with Craig, and dragging him from his bed to her own, like a she-cat on heat come looking for a torn.