She had taken up a sheet of paper, and was making rapid notes of what she had heard. Little enough it seemed as she read them over, and she was tapping her foot, with impatience and impotent energy.
“It seems pretty clear that Lavrovski has made up his mind to wait,” she said, “and is trying as best he can to keep them ignorant at headquarters of the Tsarevitch’s disappearance. This is, no doubt, Furet’s advice to him, who wants probably to have all the credit of discovering Nicholas’ whereabouts, and the liberal reward that is sure in that case to be his.
“I care nothing for the reward, but this mystery alarms me. Lavrovski! Bah! an incompetent personage at best, now a coward, who thinks more of his own safety than of the dangers that at this moment surround the Tsarevitch in his unknown prison. Pray to God,” she added fervently, “that it remain a prison, and not become a grave.”
“Amen!” said Eugen.
“Now, Eugen, that is, I think, all that you have to tell me. Your work, after I have left, will not be very difficult. Follow this man Furet wherever he goes, glean every scrap of information you can; remember, if anyone discovers the Tsarevitch it must be I and you, not they. You understand?”
A rumble of carriage wheels was now distinctly audible under the portico. Madame Demidoff hastily finished what writing she had to do, then locked her desk, and dismissed Eugen, who disappeared, silent and stolid as he had come.
Then it was that the consummate histrionic art, which this fascinating woman had at her fingers’ ends, showed itself in a way that, to a hidden observer, would have seemed almost weird; in the space of less than a minute, she seemed to have thrown off every vestige of anxiety and agitation. Her face was calm and smiling; the words of welcome to her exalted guest seemed ready to bubble forth, the hand that was cordially stretched forward was neither cold nor trembling.
The lackey had thrown open the door and announced—
“His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Beauvaix, Papal Nuncio.”
“Your Eminence does my poor house too much honour,” she said with a gracious smile, while the Cardinal, with the gallantry peculiar to his calling, kissed the tips of the dainty fingers that had been placed between his own.