“If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince Ivan has asked for your hand.”
“Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?” All the gladness went out of my heart.
“Yes. And so has Katerinowitch,” exclaimed Olga, with a bitter smile; and I noticed that she looked pale and sad.
“Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!” Then glancing at my mother, whose eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly, “Is that all? No one else?”
My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and I saw my father knitting his brows. But my mother lifted her eyes for an instant and looked at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read my happiness!
But Olga was speaking. “Yes,” she said, “there is some one else. Vassili Tarnowsky has asked to marry you.” And she added, with a touch of bitterness: “I wonder what has possessed all three of them!”
Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang like a clarion in my ears. I should be Vassili's wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska—the happiest woman in all this happy world. Every other girl on earth—poor luckless girls who could not marry Vassili—would envy me. On his arm I should pass proudly and serenely through life, rejoicing in his beauty, protected by his strength. Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass over my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me.
COUNT O'ROURKE