Never was a man more mystified than Drexel. All during the ball the questions ran through his mind, and sometimes the answers were yes, and sometimes no. Once he danced with the princess, but that relieved his bewilderment not at all, for she was perfectly at her ease, smilingly remarked once or twice in her hesitating English upon his mistake, and accorded him that faintly gracious treatment such a high-born beauty might naturally bestow upon a relative of a relative-to-be. Finally, toward two o’clock, Drexel decided he could best think the matter over in solitude, and he started home, walking for the sake of the brain-clearing fresh air. He had gone but a hundred yards or so when he became conscious that two shadowy forms were moving ahead of him, and one was lurking in the rear. The first two suddenly vanished, but the events of the last few days had made him alert for danger; his eyes went everywhere, and he held himself in tense readiness, so that when the two made a sudden rush at him from a breach in the river-wall, he quickly side-stepped, and sped along the river till he sighted a wandering sleigh. Back in the security of his room, he realized that the revolutionists were not through with him, and that he was in danger every time he left his four walls. But he had greater matters to consider than this. During most of the night, and all the next morning, he was thinking over the many questions that beset his mind. Foremost, was or was not Sonya identical with Princess Valenko? He considered their points of similarity--weighed this against that. But at every turn he was balked by the fact that Sonya had tried to seize documents from Berloff’s house, and yet Berloff had last night treated the princess with most deferential courtesy--by the fact that only the day before she had arrived in aristocratic splendour from abroad--by her cool, smiling ignorance of him and what he talked of. But finally, casting all bewildering pros and cons aside, he concluded that if such a high-spirited woman as the princess had been leading such a dangerous double life and had found herself in such a situation as last night’s, her behaviour would have been identical with the princess’s--she would have tried to brazen it through and make him think himself mistaken. They were one and the same, he decided; two such rare women, so similar, could not exist. And if they were the same, he could well understand why she had feared him and caused his capture. He had known her in the role of revolutionist, there was likelihood of his meeting her as Princess Valenko--and his discovery of their identicality would, as her fear viewed it, be disaster for her.