]
VASILI [with a keen glance at PIKE]. And you; I suppose you dined with
the charming young lady, your ward, and her brother, as you expected?
PIKE [turning away sadly]. Oh no, they've got friends of their own
here.
VASILI. So I have observed.
[Sips vodka.]
PIKE. Oh, I don't mind their not asking me.
[With an assumption of cheerfulness.]
Fact is, these friends of hers are trying to get me to do something I
can't do--
VASILI. You need not tell me that, my friend. I have both eyes and ears;
I understand.
PIKE [troubled, coming near him]. I wish you understood the rest,
because it ain't easy for me to tell you. Doc, I'm afraid I've got you
into a pretty bad hole.
VASILI [smiling]. Ah, that I fear I do not understand.
PIKE [remorsefully]. I'm afraid I have. You and Ivanoff and me--all
three of us. This Hawcastle knows, and he knows it as well as I know
you're sittin' in that chair, that we've got that poor fellow in yonder.
[Pointing to the door on the right.]
VASILI. Surely you can trust Lord Hawcastle not to mention it. He must
know that the consequences for you, as well as for me, would be, to say
the least, disastrous. Surely you made that clear to him.
PIKE [grimly]. No; he made it clear to me. Two years in jail is the
minimum, and if I don't make up my mind by ten o'clock [VASILI looks at
his watch] to do what he wants me to do--
VASILI.
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