“Our humblest regards to Clara Rodionovna!” he said, with gay suavity, taking off his hat. “As also to Vladimir Alexandrovich!”
They returned the salute, and were about to pass on, but he checked them.
“A rose of a girl, I tell you that,” he went on, addressing himself to Vladimir, while he looked at the girl with rather offensive admiration. “Young men are fools nowadays. If I were one of them I should take no chances with a lassie like that. A plum, a bouquet, a song-bird of a mademoiselle. I should propose and get her and waste no time, or—one, two, three, and the lovey-dovey may be snapped up by some other fellow.”
Clara, who was accustomed to this sort of pleasantry from him, scarcely heard what he said. She was smilingly making ready to bow herself away, when her cousin asked of the Great-Russian:
“And how is her Illustriousness? Have you seen her lately?”
“She was here yesterday. Quite stuck on you, Vladimir Alexandrovich. Sends humblest regards. ‘When is your learned young friend going to call,’ she says. You have a sage of a cousin, Clara Rodionovna, an eagle of a fellow, a cabinet minister!”
“All right,” Vladimir returned, with an amused smile, yet reddening with satisfaction.
Clara remarked to herself that her cousin was flaunting his successes with Gentiles before her. When they resumed their walk she inquired reluctantly:
“Who is ‘her Illustriousness’?”
“Oh, that’s that lame tramp of a woman, Princess Chertogoff,” he rejoined, with gestures of contempt and amusement, yet inwardly tingling with vanity at his acquaintance with her impecunious “Illustriousness.” The wealthy Great-Russian was a large holder of Princess Chertogoff’s promissory notes, and it was at his house where Vladimir had met her on several occasions. The lame noblewoman knew that Rasgadayeff was fond of the Vigdoroffs. When she saw the young man last she had, by way of currying favour with her creditor, asked the educated son of his “favourite Jew” to call on her whenever he was in the mood for it, and to “let her hear what was going on among wise men and authors.”