Lyda was not old enough to understand the hideousness of this bargain. She wasn't yet eighteen; and not to go with Verasova would have seemed worse than death. It was only later, when she had soared to brilliant success, that she realized fully what she was expected to do. Engagements were offered to her in the capitals of different countries: after Paris, Rome, and then London. She met many men of distinction, sailors, soldiers, diplomats, financiers. She was to flirt with these men--just how seriously, was her own affair!--and get them inadvertently to tell her things useful to the Tsar's government. Well, she _had_ flirted! But she had sickened at the business behind the flirtations. Very little information reached Russia through Lyda Pavoya! Reproaches and threats came to her from Markoff; and as a warning of what he could do to bring about her ruin if he chose, Russians in England, France, Italy, America, set the ball of scandal rolling against her. According to them she was a professional siren, a mercenary blood-sucker, a "tigress woman," a devourer of men's happiness and honour! Against such a campaign a woman, placed as she was, found herself helpless. She could only shrug her shoulders, go her own way, and try not to care! But the war, like an ill wind that blows good to some, changed the world for Lyda. She worked heart and soul in Paris for the Red Cross. The Russian Revolution broke like a red sunrise and with the end of Tsardom she hoped that Markoff's power over her would end also. For some months she had no word from him. Then he appeared in Paris--at a bad moment for her. Claremanagh had been there on leave. He had come to her house, complaining that he felt ill. At luncheon he had fallen from his chair in a dead faint. The doctor had pronounced the attack a virulent case of influenza. Claremanagh couldn't be moved. Lyda, helped by Madame Lemercier, had nursed him. He thought she had saved his life--vowed that he owed her more than she had ever owed him. There was endless gossip, of course, but Lyda had been so glad to repay her debt of gratitude that she hadn't much cared. It was soon after Claremanagh had gone back to the front, and while people were still coupling their names in a scandalous way, that Konrad Markoff arrived in Paris. "At last the time has come when you can be of real use to me," he had said. Lyda had hoped that this was "bluff." But Markoff explained. He explained things of which she had never dreamed.