“Dear lady, that is a question which I don’t think even Martin Sadek could answer.”
When Olisár cast a scrutinizing glance at the fair Raisa’s décolleté bosom, pitiable and bare as the desert itself, she began at once to breathe quickly and deeply.
“Ah, I have always an abnormally high temperature,” Raisa Alexandrovna went on to say with a significant expression, insinuating by her smile that her words had a double meaning. “I suffer, too, from an unusually fiery temperament.”
Olisár gave vent to a short, soft chuckle.
Romashov stood looking sideways at Raisa, thinking with disgust, “Oh, how loathsome she is.” And at the thought that he had once enjoyed her favours, he experienced the sensation as if he had not changed his linen for months.
“Well, well, Count, don’t laugh. Perhaps you do not know that my mother was a Greek?”
“And how horribly she speaks, too,” thought Romashov. “Curious that I never noticed this before. It sounds as if she had a chronic cold or a polypus in her nose—‘by buther was a Greek.’”
Now Raisa turned to Romashov and threw him a challenging glance.
Romashov mentally said, “His face became impassive like a mask.”
“How do you do, Yuri Alexievich? Why don’t you come and speak to me?” Romashov went up to her. With a venomous glance from her small, sharp eyes she pressed his hand. The pupils of her eyes stood motionless.