Meanwhile Catherine had risen and gone again to the chiffonier. From it she began to take several dishes, and as Roger hurried over to help her, he saw that they had been resting on a special arrangement of burners which had kept them hot during the past ten minutes' conversation. Together they carried the dishes and plates to a small table which was laid for two, then sat down to sup.
During the meal the Empress's active mind flitted from subject to subject with extraordinary agility and Roger had all his work cut out to keep up with her; but evidently she was pleased with him, as while they were eating their dessert, she congratulated him on his conversation, remarking that he had an exceptionally wide knowledge of affairs for so young a man.
For his part Roger found her easy, vivacious and extraordinarily interesting to talk to; and he caught himself thinking that, had she been nearer his own age he could easily have fallen in love with her.
But, as it was, a gulf of nearly forty years separated them, and each time he looked at her sagging, heavily-painted face, redeemed only by the marvellous blue eyes, he felt a shiver run down his spine.
Ever since a night five years earlier, when, as a boy of fifteen, he had been taken to a brothel in Le Havre and had run from it in disgust, he had had a horror of making love to any woman who did not attract him; and more recently, there had been numerous occasions on which he had felt sickened at the advances of voluptuous ladies past their prime. Only the memory of the dungeon at Schlusselburg kept him from throwing down his napkin and rushing from the room. He knew that later, somehow or other, he would have to bring himself to caress her and, mentally, he shuddered at the thought; but she gave him little time to think of that, and for longish periods he forgot it altogether, only to recall it again with amazement at the fact that she had so bewitched him with her brilliant personality that he had actually been enjoying himself. Again it entered his mind that if he could only get through this first night with her he might yet endure the physical relationship for the sake of the great place in the world it would bring him.
When they rose from table she went to a secretaire and produced two parchments, which she handed to him, as she said:
"The one is your official pardon for the Yagerhorn affair. I cannot find it in myself to blame you for taking your revenge upon him, and, even had I not taken a liking to you, I should have let you off with a severe reprimand."
He gave a nervous laugh. "The night I was arrested I fully believed that I should end by paying for that business with my life. Doubtless I would have, too, had not you chanced to learn of my case, and believing me a monster, became curious as to my appearance."
"Nay, 'twas not chance," she said quickly, "for I should have learned of the matter in any event. I allow no person in my realm to be condemned to death without first having had full information of the circumstances laid before me; and in nine cases out of ten I commute the punishment to imprisonment. The other paper will compensate you somewhat for your fright. 'Tis the title-deed to an estate, carrying three hundred and fifty serfs, in the province of Tula."
As he began to stammer his thanks she took the black and red ribbon from round her neck, and reaching up, passed it over his head, exclaiming as the shining star fell oh the lace frills of his shirt: "I make you, too, a Knight of my Order of St. Vladimir, for I would think but meanly of myself did I keep a friend long landless and undecorated in my company."
Roger felt horribly embarrassed by this generous payment in advance for a service that he was still uncertain that he could bring himself to render. But the volatile Empress did not notice his confusion, as she half turned away and, indicating a door partially concealed by a curtain, went on: "Now, before we give ourselves up to the pleasures of the night, let us take a turn or two in the winter garden, for the good of our digestions."
Heaving an inaudible sigh of relief at this respite Roger accompanied her through the door, and on glancing round, was amazed to find himself in a veritable paradise. The place they had entered was a conservatory of such vast dimensions that he could not see its ends and could only vaguely discern its roof. There were no pots or wooden stages, and, except for being enclosed, it had all the appearance of a richly-stocked tropical garden in the open. Gravel walks wound between gay flower-borders and banks of flowering shrubs scented the air with a heady perfume; there were fountains, trees twenty feet in height, and open spaces with shaved grass lawns. Chains of fairy-lamps illuminated the whole, and as they moved, scores of parakeets and other brightly-coloured birds fluttered away to seek fresh cover among more distant foliage.
Catherine told him that she had built this wonder on a great row of arches in each of which big furnaces were kept going day and night; so that the temperature never altered, and even in the depths of the Russian winter it provided her with grapes, pineapples, hyacinths and roses.
But as they walked sedately between the palms and oleanders, her hand resting lightly on his arm, Roger's thoughts were whirling again. It suddenly struck him as grimly humorous that, within a fortnight, he should have been the recipient of two Orders of Chivalry for such fantastically divergent reasons. What would she do, he wondered, if he told her that in the filthy straw on the floor of a dungeon in her castle of Schlusselburg he had buried the Star and yellow ribbon of a Swedish decoration, and how he had earned it. Send him to take what joy of it he could there for the rest of his life, seemed the almost certain answer. But the thought prompted him to express his admiration for the fearlessness she had shown when first attacked by Gustavus, and the way in which she had despatched the few troops that she could muster to oppose his greatly superior army on her frontiers.
She smiled at him. "The Romans never asked after the number of their enemies, but where they were, in order to fight them; and I am of their mind."
When he asked her if she thought that the Swedish army in Finland would disintegrate before winter, she replied with a chuckle. "I care not, now that its sting has been drawn from it. Realising his army to be a broken reed, the insolent Gustavus has abandoned it to its fate. My spies report that he fled from his camp by night, with a few intimates, a fortnight back. I fear that by now 'tis as good as certain that he has succeeded in eluding Admiral Greig's blockade; but his homecoming will be far from a triumph, and his position will soon be rendered desperate by a pretty little surprise I have in store for him."
In a low voice she went on to tell Roger of the secret clause she had inserted in the treaty of 1773, by which she had ceded Holstein to the Danes, and how they had now agreed to honour their bond by launching a surprise attack on Sweden.
Already being aware of this deep secret his mind began to wander again to what lay ahead of him; but it was brought back with a jerk by her adding: "When Gustavus hears the news that a Danish army has invaded his western provinces from Norway he will naturally expect it to march direct on Stockholm, and devote all his energies to preparing the defences of his capital. But instead, 'tis the Danes' intention to overrun the south and seize undefended Gothenburg."