“Another side of the same one, madam,” rejoined he, dryly.
“What delightful news, to think I shall see my dearest Kate again! I am dying to know all about Russia, and if the ladies do wear pearls in morning toilette, and whether turquoises are only seen in fans and parasol handles. What splendor she must have seen!”
“Humph!” said Grounsell, with a short shrug of the shoulders.
“Oh, I know you despise all these things, and you hate caviare. Then I want to know about the Prince; why the match was broken off; and from what cause she refused that great settlement,—some thousand roubles. How much is a rouble, by the way, doctor?”
“I really cannot tell you, madam,” said he, bluntly, who saw that she was once more “wide a-field.”
“She'll tell me all herself, and everything about Russia. I want to hear about the knout, and the malachite, and that queer habit of gambling before dinner is announced. I 'm sure I should like St Petersburg. And the brother, what is he like?”
“I only know, madam, that he is a great invalid, not yet recovered from his wounds!”
“How interesting! He was in the patriot army, was he not?”
“He fought for the Emperor, madam; pray make no mistake in that sense.”
“Oh dear! how difficult it is to remember all these things; and yet I knew it perfectly when I was at Florence,—all about the Kaiser-Jagers, and the Crociati, and the Croats, and the rest of them. It was the Crociati, or the Croats—I forget which—eat little children. It 's perfectly true; Guardarelli, when he was a prisoner, saw an infant roasting for Radetzky's own table.”