The Mission of Poubalov — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HOW LITIZKI SAVED MISS HILMAN. 189 course I pretended not to see him, but he despises me and cares not for all my efforts.’’ Clara felt no fear at this information, but it neverthe- less aroused a sense of discomfort. A presentiment of mis- fortune she readily dismissed; this fact of being persist- ently ‘‘shadowed’’ by a man whom she believed to be her enemy she could not dismiss, and she could not shake off the irritation caused by it. ‘‘Suppose,’’ suggested Litizki, ‘‘that you pretend to take this train but really wait for the next one.”’ ‘*No,’’ replied Clara, ‘‘I will not be interfered with in my movements by Poubalov. I suppose it is his right to — take the train, if he chooses to do so, as well as it is mine. I will go to my car now, please, and if he ventures to in- trude upon me I shall know how to relieve myself of his presence, ”’ Litizki’s eyes sparkled with exultant satisfaction for just an instant, and then the fire that lit them subsided to a steady glow that would have revealed a fixed and awful purpose had anybody seen it and read it correctly. Buthe kept his eyes averted as he escorted Clara to the car, thinking of her words, weighing them, repeating them to himself. They sank deep into his brain, where his percep- tions of life, disordered by a rankling sense of injustice, distorted them and threw them back to the surface of his thoughts with an interpretation all his own. ‘She has the nature of heroes,’’ he said to himself, ‘‘and she is capable of it! She is great, grand! How fitting that Alexander Poubalov should meet at last a foe of infi- nite spirit, intellect as keen as his own, courage unfalter- ing, and that foe a woman! But she is a woman, and her place is beside my benefactor. She must be saved for him and for herself. She must be spared this demonstration of her right to rank with heroes. I know what she is, and Strobel shall know when, Poubalov out of the way, he gains his freedom. She must be saved, and I must save her. Itis my fate!’’ Wholly unsuspicious of the raving that was going emia