"I would rather not be in Count Mellikoff's shoes," she said to herself, "should he not succeed. Ivor Tolskoi is not likely to prove a light enemy, and Ivor Tolskoi means to steal from him not only his sweetheart, but his reputation."
Then she laughed a little as she turned gaily back to her gipsy-table, and her thé à l'anglaise.
Meantime Tolskoi on leaving the Palace Vera, turned his steps towards the Boulevard de Cavalerio, in the direction of his own apartments. His brow was clouded and his lips stern as he walked along the gaily-lighted streets. Evening had already closed in, the long evening of a day late in March, and the boulevard was full of life and movement.
Ivor, however, took but little heed of his surroundings, the news he had just heard concerning Olga, disquieted him not a little, the more so as his love for her was very great, and he felt that he alone was answerable for her mental and physical illness. He would have spared her had it been possible for him to do so, and had he seen any other way out of his difficulties. His first great object was to win her away from Mellikoff, whom he knew to be his only serious rival, and to do this he was willing to descend to any subterfuge.
He knew her nature sufficiently well to be aware that nothing short of falsity to her, on Vladimir's part, would serve to break even the light bonds that held her to him. Mellikoff's greatest power lay in the protested claims of this his first and only love; and she, in listening to his protestations, had been more swayed by the sense of her undivided sovereignty over him, than by any feeling of affection.
His years and his honours gave him the right to pose as a man of fashion, whose experiences of a certain kind were but foregone conclusions; instead, however, of pleading this as a reason for his wish to ranger himself, he actually offered her a virgin heart, that had known no warmer mistress than ambition, until he met her, and fell captive beneath her smile and proud, cold loveliness.
The paradox of his life was unique, especially in Petersburg; and Olga had felt a thrill of pride when she looked upon Vladimir's stern face, and noted the many distinctions of honour that marked his Court dress, and realised that she, and she only, had won his love and his devotion. She was the first woman before whom he had bowed his head in haughty pleading. It was no mean triumph, even for Olga Naundorff, to win and rule him as an accepted suitor.
All this Tolskoi realised to the full, and as his passion grew and strengthened, he determined to hesitate at nothing—no duplicity, no falsehood—if by it he could awaken suspicion in her mind, and so gain time for the perfecting of his own ends. Mellikoff's prolonged absence, and the unexpected meeting with Adèle Lamien in St. Isaac's, gave him ample basis upon which to work, and furnished him with a plan of attack, with so much of possible truth in it as to carry instant conviction to Olga's mind.
Her heart had always remained untouched, even by Vladimir's devotion; she had not therefore, the divine instinct of love, by which to sift out the false from the true.
And of Ivor it may be said, he believed enough in his allegations to make their fulfilment an easy possibility; it was, however, quite outside his calculations that Olga, by a real or feigned illness, should effectually shut herself off from his personal influence; the more so, as in a few days he was obliged to leave Petersburg, for his own estates in the Ural provinces, and his absence would extend over several weeks. What security had he against adverse circumstances and influences, while separated from her? Was it not even possible that Mellikoff might return triumphant? In which case, of what avail would be his schemes and intrigues?