When I Was Czar

The narrator had virtually made up his mind before the Prince left the room, and save for one consideration he should have consented right away. But he could not quite size up the Prince himself. He was almost British in his distrust of certain classes of Russian officials. He had lived in Petersburg for some years as a boy, and his father, who was at the Embassy, had inculcated this prejudice. He could never resist the feeling that they had some subtle undercurrent motive which made for duplicity; and he could not now shake himself free from the belief in regard to Prince Kalkov. He had no tangible reason for it. The Prince stood high in the confidence of the Czar; he had gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to the narrator; he had treated the narrator apparently with signal frankness; and had admitted the possible risks and complications of the very tangled business.