Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders with a commiserating smile. He took the countess’s troubles indifferently, as do the rest of us when our neighbor’s burden does not drag upon our own shoulders. It suited him that Catrina should be in Petersburg, and it is to be feared that the feelings of the Countess Lanovitch had no weight as against the convenience of Karl Steinmetz.
“Ah, well!” he said, “you must console yourself with the thought that Petersburg is the brighter for some of us. Who is this—another visitor?”
The door was thrown open, and Claude de Chauxville walked into the room with the easy grace which was his.
“Mme. la Comtesse,” he said, bowing over her hand.
Then he stood upright, and the two men smiled grimly at each other. Steinmetz had thought that De Chauxville was in London. The Frenchman counted on the other’s duties to retain him in Osterno.
“Pleasure!” said De Chauxville, shaking hands.
“It is mine,” answered Steinmetz.
The countess looked from one to the other with a smile on her foolish face.
“Ah!” she exclaimed; “how pleasant it is to meet old friends! It is like bygone times.”
At this moment the door opened again and Catrina came in. In her rich furs she looked almost pretty.
She shook hands eagerly with Steinmetz; her deep eyes searched his face with a singular, breathless scrutiny.
“Where are you from?” she asked quickly.
“London.”
“Catrina,” broke in the countess, “you do not remember M. de Chauxville! He nursed you when you were a child.”
Catrina turned and bowed to De Chauxville.
“I should have remembered you,” he said, “if we had met accidentally. After all, childhood is but a miniature—is it not so?”
“Perhaps,” answered Catrina; “and when the miniature develops it loses the delicacy which was its chief charm.”
She turned again to Steinmetz, as if desirous of continuing her conversation with him.
“M. de Chauxville, you surely have news?” broke in the countess’s cackling voice. “I have begged M. Steinmetz in vain. He says he has none; but is one to believe so notorious a bad character?”
“Madame, it is wise to believe only that which is convenient. But Steinmetz, I promise you, is the soul of honor. What sort of news do you crave for? Political, which is dangerous; social, which is scandalous; or court news, which is invariably false?”
“Let us have scandal, then.”
“Ah! I must refer you to the soul of honor.”
“Who,” answered Steinmetz, “in that official capacity is necessarily deaf, and in a private capacity is naturally dull.”
He was looking very hard at De Chauxville, as if he was attempting to make him understand something which he could not say aloud. De Chauxville, from carelessness or natural perversity, chose to ignore the persistent eyes.
“Surely the news is from London,” he said lightly; “we have nothing from Paris.”
He glanced at Steinmetz, who was frowning.
“I can hardly tell you stale news that comes from London via Paris, can I?” he continued.
Steinmetz was tapping impatiently on the floor with his broad boot.
“About whom—about whom?” cried the countess, clapping her soft hands together.
“Well, about Prince Paul,” said De Chauxville, looking at Steinmetz with airy defiance.
Steinmetz moved a little. He placed himself in front of Catrina, who had suddenly lost color. She could only see his broad back. The others in the room could not see her at all. She was rather small, and Steinmetz hid her as behind a screen.
“Ah!” he said to the countess, “his marriage! But Madame the Countess assuredly knows of that.”
“How could she?” put in De Chauxville.
“The countess knew that Prince Paul was going to be married,” explained Karl Steinmetz very slowly, as if he wished to give someone time. “With such a man as he, ‘going to be’ is not very far from being.”
“Then it is an accomplished fact?” said the countess sharply.
“Yesterday,” answered Steinmetz.
“And you were not there!” exclaimed Countess Lanovitch, with uplifted hands.
“Since I was here,” answered Steinmetz.
The countess launched into a disquisition on the heinousness of marrying any but a compatriot. The tone of her voice was sharp, and the volume of her words almost amounted to invective. As Steinmetz was obviously not listening, the lady imparted her views to the Baron de Chauxville.
Steinmetz waited for some time, then he turned slowly toward Catrina without actually looking at her.
“It is dangerous,” he said, “to stay in this warm room with your furs.”
“Yes,” she answered, rather faintly; “I will go and take them off.”
Steinmetz held the door open for her, but he did not look at her.
XVI
The Thin End
“But I confess I cannot understand why I should not be called the Princess Alexis—there is nothing to be ashamed of in the title. I presume you have a right to it?”
Etta looked up from her occupation of fixing a bracelet, with a little glance of enquiry toward her husband.
They had been married a month. The honeymoon—a short one—had been passed in the house of a friend, indeed a relation of Etta’s own, a Scotch peer who was not above lending a shooting-lodge in Scotland on the tacit understanding that there should be some quid pro quo in the future.
In answer Paul merely smiled, affectionately tolerant of her bright sharpness of manner. Your bright woman in society is apt to be keen at home. What is called vivacity abroad may easily degenerate into snappiness by the hearth.
“I think it is rather ridiculous being called plain Mrs. Howard-Alexis,” added Etta, with a pout.
They were going to a ball—the first since their marriage. They had just dined, and Paul had followed his wife into the drawing-room. He took a simple-minded delight in her beauty, which was of the description that is at its best in a gorgeous setting. He stood looking at her, noting her grace, her pretty, studied movements. There were, he reflected, few women more beautiful—none, in his own estimation, fit to compare with her.
She had hitherto been sweetness itself to him, enlivening his lonely existence,
