Paul Alexis, half Russian, half English, understood these people very thoroughly. He took advantage of their ignorance, their simplicity, their unfathomable superstition. He governed as no other could have ruled them, by fear and kindness at once. He mastered them by his vitality, the wholesome strength of his nature, his infinite superiority. He avoided the terrible mistake of the Nihilists by treating them as children to whom education must be given little by little instead of throwing down before them a mass of dangerous knowledge which their minds, unaccustomed to such strong food, are incapable of digesting. A British coldness of blood damped as it were the Russian quixotism which would desire to see result follow upon action--to see the world make quicker progress than its Creator has decreed. With very unsatisfactory material Paul was setting in motion a great rock which will roll down into the ages unconnected with his name, clearing a path through a very thick forest of ignorance and tyranny. CHAPTER XI CATRINA The man who carries a deceit, however innocent, with him through life is apt to be somewhat handicapped in that unfair competition. He is like a ship at sea with a "sprung" mainmast. A side breeze may arise at any moment which throws him all aback and upon his beam-ends. He runs illegitimate risks, which are things much given to dragging at a man's mind, handicapping his thoughts. Paul suffered in this way. It was a distinct burthen to him to play a double part, although each was innocent enough in itself. At school, and later on at the 'Varsity, he had consistently and steadily suppressed a truth from friend and foe alike--namely, that he was in his own country a prince. No great crime on the face of it; but a constant suppression of a very small truth is as burdensome as any suggestion of falsehood. It makes one afraid of contemptible foes, and doubtful of the value of one's own friendship. Paul was a simple-minded man. He was not afraid of the Russian Government. Indeed, he cultivated a fine contempt for that august body. But he was distinctly afraid of being found out, for that discovery could only mean an incontinent cessation of the good work which rendered his life happy. The fear of being deprived of this interest in existence should certainly have been lessened, if not quite allayed, by the fact that a greater interest had been brought into his life in the pleasant form of a prospective wife. When he was in London with Etta Sydney Bamborough he did not, however, forget Osterno. He only longed for the time when he could take Etta freely into his confidence and engage her interest in the object of his ambition--namely, to make the huge Osterno estate into that lump of leaven which might in time leaven the whole of the empire.